


All That's Left

by AlwaysWatching



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternia, Bigotry & Prejudice, Blood and Injury, Casteism | Hemophobia (Homestuck), Death, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt, Genocide, Hacking, Hiveswap: Friendsim, Multi, Panic Attacks, Quadrant Confusion, Rebellion, Recreational Drug Use, Revolution, Troll Romance (Homestuck), War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2020-12-21 12:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 69,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21075203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysWatching/pseuds/AlwaysWatching
Summary: The Condesce was gone. Gl'bgolyb was gone. The fleet was gone. All that remained of troll society was contained on a planet with two moons. All that was left of trolls was a place where young trolls run to-and-fro, culling one another, running away from each other, hating each other, loving each other.  Alternia was on the brink of something. All it needs is for a troll to set it all into motion, to spark a match in a bone dry forest.And one does.





	1. Prologue

What the fuck? Was that seriously it??? You glance furtively back, making sure your “host” isn’t standing behind you. Gotta make sure, it wouldn’t be the first time he had teleported behind you. But according to all the shit you just read, he should be dead? And the green sun that gave him powers shouldn’t exist either? You stare hard at the wall of the green mansion around you and feel your brain start to hurt. The mansion was still here, so it certainly didn’t look like your host was dead. Maybe you were just in a part of the time loop where he hadn't died yet? Didn't the mansion get destroyed too? What would happen when he did die? He had to die, right? Your thoughts are drawn back to the time you hid the clown church with Marvus, taking shelter from universe tearing itself seams. Or was it really the universe that was doing that? Or was it Doc Scratch? Were they even different? Would the reality you were in right now tear the same when he died? Or would Lord English keep it going? You feel a familiar pain in your head begin to bloom and you dismiss the thoughts. Not even worth thinking about, all you needed to know was that shit was fucked up right now and that if you stayed in this mansion you were probably going to die. Even though you’ve already died quite a few times at this point, it wasn't like you enjoyed it. You’re also pretty sure if you die here, then you would die in real life. Whatever the hell that means. You decide to not think about it.  


Your eyes flick back to the monitor and you shoot a final glare at it. Fuck those epilogues. You were going to fix this. Okay maybe you won’t fix it, but at least you’ll try to escape. Maybe back to Alternia. Hopefully back to Alternia. Maybe Earth? Was Earth still a thing? Maybe you should play it safe, go back to somewhere you know. You nearly laugh at the irony that living with trolls on their murder planet was probably a safer place then a literal mansion. But, if you escaped, then you would have quite a few highbloods friends backing you up. Sure, some of them had killed you, but that was in your friendship induced heat so really they can’t be blamed. Now that you weren’t such a slut for platonic friendship, you could make better choices. Choices that ideally didn’t lead to your death.  


You run through your plan in your head or what you assure yourself was a plan. You just needed to find that fennestrated plane. That was priority one. You hurry your way through the halls and find your thoughts start to wander. You think about the kidss and feel sick. Maybe escaping was more crucial here, but those kids don’t deserve and even those trolls don’t deserve any of the shit that’s going to happen to them. Or happened to them? Fuck it. Regardless of any time shenanigans, they didn’t deserve it. If you escape from here, you might be able to warn them. Or warn the trolls who are going to play sgrub. The latter seemed more likely. Either way, you’re going to warn someone. Maybe. Hopefully. You mean, how could this go wrong?  


You pick up your pace through the mansion, trying to be as silent as possible as you search frantically for an exit. You had gotten pretty good at sneaking around with Polypa and you send a silent thanks to the oliveblood. You needed to be quiet. Needed to avoid Mr. Vanilla Milkshake, because if he found you, you'd be right back where you were, and it's not like you could fight. You weren’t built for fighting goddamnit! You were built for… You know you don’t really know the answer to that, but ruminating on your existential dread and the meaning of your existence wouldn’t help you get away. Better get on with the plot after all. No one wants to hear an internal monologue with no action for the entirety of this prologue. That’d be boring!  


You hurry forward and catch sight of a hall that lacks the bright green glow of the rest of the mansion. Well, this looks like where you need to be! You’re pretty sure that the area lacking the eerie green glow was where it was at. You rush down the hall, barely noticing the various pieces of antique troll and human technology strewn across the floor and pinned to the wall. You do pause for a brief moment as you see the remains of your spaceship that you had crash landed on Alternia with. How the fuck had it ended up here? Was this graveyard of narrative devices?  


You take another look around the room and decide to abandon this train of thought too. Whatever weird bullshit was going on was not worth figuring out. You sweep the room again, looking for anything useful and squeal with joy. Fuck yeah. That was the house shaped juju. You know this one. You eagerly crouch down and stick your hand through, waiting for your cool retcon powers. You bet you could beat Doc Scratch's ass with some cool powers! Or maybe just hide from him more effectively. Both are good.  


You’re thrown from you victory as the world around you begins to shake and fold in an all too familiar pattern. You feel dread spill into your veins, your eyes frantically looking back and forth as the world begins to melt around you. Shit. Are you serious?  


God forbid anything be simple.  


Fuck Paradox space you think, as the world blinks away.

______________________________________________________________________  


Your name is Doc Scratch, and someone is toying with canon. Which means that someone has fucked up. Fucked up big time. Fucked up more than when the Serket girl had tried to beat you by cheating with your own magic eight ball. Your omniscience shifts and you note that one of your esteemed guests has not only finished reading the story you provided, but apparently had quite the emotional reaction to it. You do suppose those epilogues did not resolve much. It is truly a shame that you have to die so they can come forth. The outrage they will generate would surely be satisfying. As satisfying as things can be for someone who knows everything that is.  


You know they will be satisfying.  


You begin to teleport, intent on placing your guest back in their chair. Surely they would enjoy a reread of the text. There is so much they probably missed on the first go around. Lacking omniscience to catch it all must surely be a shame. You will see to it that they read it once again. Cackling green energy starts arcing around you like you fell yourself beginning to move, but suddenly your mansions begins to shake. You pause your teleportation. The shaking was quite dramatic. It was as if the trolls were testing weapons on their own moon once again. More problematically however, is the fact that you don’t know why your mansion is shaking. You know why it is not shaking, but that is hardly what you needed to know. This shaking is not part of your knowledge. You know everything, how could you possibly not know why your home is shaking?  


Your omniscience finally fills in the gaps and you find yourself immensely displeased with what it tells you. It would seem that your esteemed guest has found some sort of juju. How it got there is, once again, beyond you. You would feel frustrated if that were possible. You imagine that their finding of it was a product of minor narrative necessity. What you do know is, that the best of your omniscient knowledge, canon is tearing itself apart. You truly do hate canon sometimes. What an inconvenient thing to deal with.  


The mansion gives another mighty shake and you feel canon melting even more rapidly. Sigh. You suppose you will have to do something about this. You will have to let this guest go, cleave them from canon and thrust them into whatever nonsense they insist on engaging in. More importantly however, you need to cleave it because you refuse to not know something. First though, you will need to make sure a few key actors are secured. Cleaving them from canon will have consequences, and given your frustrating lack of omniscience regarding the consequences, you will have to make contingencies. What a shame, to be a creature forced to dwell in canon. But things must be done, loops must be closed.  


Your power flares around you as you snap your fingers. You force all your crucial players to stick in the canon you dwell in. You cannot let your players slip away. You will cleave them from any copy of your world that your guest makes, accidentally or otherwise. Fools cannot be trusted after all. You seek out everyone, Your handmaid, Her Imperious Condescension, Alternia, Gl'bgolyb, even more beyond them. Every single piece required. Your omniscience does not tell you what the consequences of your play will be, but you find yourself uncaring. There are infinite non-canon universes after all. Besides, you are about to fix things. You do not need to know what goes on in the non-canon place. You will satisfy yourself with the knowledge that the canon you are in will function as needed.  


You conjure a pair of scissors, for dramatic effect of course. You don’t need any tool to perform what you need to do, but the dramatic flare is very pleasant, isn’t it? You open them, and snap together.  


The ties of reality become undone.  


The shaking that once wrecked your mansion abruptly ends, and your total omniscience returns to you. You stretch it outwards, and find everything just as you had left it. You stretch into the past, and find the same Alternia you have been shaping for your entire life. You note that all your players have once again settled where they need be. You teleport yourself where your esteemed guest once sat and read a short webcomic. You stretch out your hand and conjure yourself your favorite broom. You raise it high, then slam it down, over and over, entirely destroying the computer that once rested on the desk in front of you. The chair too. And the desk. Really the whole room if you’re honest, and you do not lie.  
Canon must continue. Wherever your guest ends up you wish them the worst.  


No one beats Doc Scratch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, read my new web serial:


	2. Fear and Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fixed Folykl's quirk. Still don't have a beta though T_T. Please let me know if there are any mistakes! I am doing my best to catch them all.

Trizza: Ψhat do you MEAN he’s gone???????   
Trizza: HoΨ the FUCK does that work?  
Trizza: Gl'bgolyb is a massive underwater lusus.  
Trizza: How the fuck does he disappear?  
Trizza: Ψhere would he even go?????  
Galzem: I-do-not-know-your-highness  
Trizza: Great, thanks for letting me know that asshole.  
Trizza: Does anyone else knoΨ???  
Galzem: The-rumor-has-gone-out---  
Trizza: And Ψho’s fault is that?????????  
Galzem: Your-higness-your-lusus-was-hard-to-miss-  
Galzem: Any-seadweller-would-have-noticed-his-loss-  
Galzem: Your-enemies-have-been-quick-to-spread-the-news-  
Galzem: As-I’m-sure-you-know-there-are-revolutionaries-among-the-sea-dwellers-  
Trizza: Just…  
Trizza: Just fucking great.  
Trizza: Alright.  
Trizza: Gather the drones.  
Galzem: Why-?  
Trizza: Ψe are going to reassert dominance.  
Trizza: I Ψill NOT appear Ψeak.  
Trizza: I didn’t need that stupid monster anyway.  
Trizza: Her Imperious Condescension can handle that.  
Trizza: I Ψant to start culling as many gutter bloods as possible before they get any ideas.  
Trizza: And I want to cull any revolutionary among the seadwellers.  
Trizza: You know what? Let’s keep it simple. Cull anyone who oppose me.  
Galzem: I-understand-  
Galzem: There-is-more-news-too-  
Galzem: About-the-Condesce-  
Galzem: I-do-not-believe-she-will-be-able-to-assist-with-the-disappearance-of-Gl'bgolyb-  
Trizza: And Ψhy is that?  
Galzem: She-is-missing-as-well-  
Galzem: Her-ship-has-stopped-broadcasting-it’s-location-and-successes-  
Trizza: Oh?  
Trizza: Since Ψhen?  
Galzem: Around-the-same-time-your-lusus-dissappeared-your-highness-  
Trizza: What about her fleet?  
Galzem: There-whereabouts-are-similarly-unknown-  
Trizza: Oh?  
Trizza: Ψell then.  
Trizza: Start culling lowbloods and broadcast my status as the new Condesce.  
Trizza: My first act will be culling every gutterblood, every troll that does not bend the knee.  
Trizza: Understand?  
Galzem: Yes-your-highness-  
________________________________________________________________

You lean back in your chair and sigh. This situation is fucked. So fucked. You’re not even sure if you have the words in your pan to reflect how fucked it is. Various monitors were flicking through a myriad of different things, but your attention was focused on only two. One from hacked security cameras, the other from a drone whose onboard cameras you had cracked into. What you saw make your bloodpusher sink.  


Lowbloods were lying dead everywhere. Rust, bronze, and goldblood corpses filling the streets. You feast your ganderbulbs on another monitor that displayed a feed from a device of your own creation. A small drone that could fly silently and couldn’t be detected by any tech. It showed you a feed of a currently being destroyed Ouglut, complete with the corpses various lusuii and destroyed hives. Rubble was strewn everywhere and you could see that trolls were running. Anyone who had pisonics was either flying away or using them to try and distract and fight the drones. 

There were drones were everywhere, chasing after trolls as various weapons mowed dozens down at once. Blades sliced through any lowblood who was close enough, while laser culled any trolls that were too far away. Other drones seemed intent on destroying any hive that hadn’t already been completely demolished. It was a massacre. You had seen trolls get culled, hard to avoid when you were on Alternia, but this was...this was something else. You tear your eyes away to look at a different screen.  


This one had chittr pulled up, with a post from Trizza dominating the screen. She declared that the old Condesce was dead that she had killed her, that she was the new Condesce, and that she was going to cull lowbloods down to “a respectable size”. You're positive that no lowblood even had a chance to see the announcement before the culling started. You knew that the first part of her post was bullshit but believed the last two. News of the original Condesce’s disappearance spread fast. Within moments of her location being lost, trolls were going wild. Speculation on the forums you frequented ranged from her defeat to a strange post about timelines and canon fraying. It quickly came to light that not only was the Condesce missing but so was every single adult troll who wasn’t on Alternia. Being Alternia was...well Alternia, that meant all of them.  


You tried gathering more information, tried reaching out to your sources, even tried looking for signals from the fleet yourself, but you came up empty. You notice your leg bouncing up and down rapidly, but you can't force it to stop. You had too many other things to focus on. Sure, you weren’t a lowblood so none of this really impacted you, but this was taking it to another level. Even worse, you had a feeling that Trizza wasn’t planning on stopping with just a few destroyed neighborhoods. She was going to destroy and kill until she thought her message was sent. That every lowblood had to bend the knee even more than they already did.  


You hear a sharp beep and turn your attention to yet another screen. You had been trying to reroute a squad of drones away from Outglut and it looks like it had worked. You feel a bolt of excitement race up your spine and quickly check where they were heading to. They were veering off course to…  


Shit.  


They were heading straight for a clown church. The one in the middle of fucking Thrashthrust. You reach forward, intent on redirecting them once again, but fail. You try again, your fingers racing to adjust their destination, but nothing changed. The drones had been wrenched from your control once again. You growled, slamming a fist onto your desk and move to try again. You make it through the first few letters of the command but then pause. Was this even a bad thing? It wasn't like the purplebloods of Thrashthrust were known for being kind. Besides, you were pretty sure you couldn’t change shit at this point. What was done is done and you’d have to live with whatever happens. You didn’t know for sure what the drones were going to do when they got there, but you had a decent idea. As far you could tell, Trizza had ordered them to kill everything within their sight when they reached their destination. Your hands twitched and you felt your stomach tighten. You moved your attention back to one of your programs that was working on cracking a camera on one of the drones heading there. As you wait, you opt to switch to one of the various security feeds of the area. Purplebloods weren’t fond of surveillance around their “holy places,” but you had your ways.  


The feed pulled up on a monitor sitting in front of you and you turned your attention to it. You felt a familiar bile rise in your throat and any regret you had began to burn away. It looked like the purplebloods were having their own slaughter. However, rather than the corpses and blood of exclusively lowbloods, you were greeted with the sight of a far more diverse population of slaughtered trolls. The exterior of the building was painted with vibrant splashes of blood and the earth they laid on was becoming just as vibrant and colorful as the blood that pooled onto it. You feel the last of your empathy fade. Whatever the hell was going on with those cult obsessed freaks no longer concern you. They were no better then Trizza, their culling was just more indiscriminate. You would have liked to think that your rage was purely righteous, but you knew it wasn't. The amount of blood in the mix ensured that. You didn't usually care about caste. In fact, you though the whole hemospecturm was stupid. But, the sight of so many of your own caste members culled enraged you like nothing else.  


An alert from one of your monitors forces you out of your dark ruminations. Your program had finally finished cracking into the cameras of one of the approaching drones. The same scene that had greeted you on the security camera met your eyes as the drones finally landed, their flight ending in front of the purplebloods church. The three of them stood silently for a moment, their systems taking in the scene. You reach up to toy with one of the piercing on your horn and watch as the drone's weapon's finally start to charge up. You wonder if it’s going to kill everyone inside on the first go. You kind of doubt it, Purplebloods were tough motherfuckers after all.  


Your monitor briefly blinds you as the drones release their charge, their laser slamming into the church in front of them. When the smoke clears you're shocked to see the building still standing, the only evidence of the drones strikes being a massive hole in one of the front walls. Damn. You wondered what the hell that church was made to withstand. More weapons fire as the drones try again, but they had missed their chance to bring the house down. Clowns had already begun pouring out of the church as soon as the hole appeared, their weapons bared. The drones didn’t seem to care they were highbloods and swapped targets, their blades unsheathing as they begin slashing and firing at their enemies. Purple blood spills onto the earth when the drones strike ring true and several clown corpses joined the smattering of other dead trolls decorating the earth. The sight makes you want to vomit, even as you try to feel vindicated. Unconsciously, you reach up to cut the feed, your hand shaking the entire time. Before you flick it off though, you stop yourself. What right did you have to avoid what you did? You sent the drones to the church, you caused the fight. You glance back down and take in the scene, and attempt to retreat into the part of your thinkpan that left emotions at the door. You didn’t want to watch this, but you had to. The lowbloods who were being culled didn't have a choice but to watch what happened to them. If they could do it, you could too. You look up at the monitor displaying Trizza’s tweet and feel a small sense of resolve in your chest. The purplebloods would allow Trizza’s genocide. Judging from what you'd seen before the drones shown up, they were performing their own genocide. You couldn’t feel bad. You've watched far more innocent trolls get culled by the drones. The purplebloods deserved it. You watch more corpses hit the ground. You should feel good.  


Instead you feel hollow.  
__________________________________________________________________ 

You’re running faster than you think you ever have before. Other lowbloods feet pounded against the pavement close to you, all trying to mount their own escapes. All of you had a singular goal in mind, to get away from the drones that had landed in Outglut and began culling the neighborhood. You couldn't focus on any other troll though. In fact, you could barely think about what was happening around you at all. The slaughter was just too much to take in. All you could do was run and hope you escape. What else could you do? You couldn’t fight a fucking culling drone. You wouldn’t last a second. You didn’t even have any weapons on you. Not for the first time you wished you had psionics. Why the fuck did you have to end up a lowblood without psionics? You dart around, constantly swapping directions to enhance your chances of survival.  


There was death and blood everywhere and you knew your boots must be slicking up with it. But it didn't matter to you. You were too numb with terror and adrenaline to care. You hoped the drones were done with the area you were in and wouldn’t sweep back, for you and the lowbloods you were fleeing with. It was all you could do to build some distance in the first place. Maybe you could hide somewhere, just wait it out. The drones would never have enough time to do a proper scan of the area. You look around desperately but are just left disappointed. There wasn’t any cover, every last building near you was either torched to the ground or otherwise reduced to rubble. You notice your boots slicking up with blood as you run, and you stumble as you nearly trip over a corpse. You catch yourself and keep running. You couldn’t stop.  


Your breath leaves you in ragged gasps and you glance behind you, trying to keep yourself alert through your panic. The only things that were close to you were other fleeing lowbloods. The closest drone to you was at least 200 meters away as it burned down a few particularly sturdy hives.  


You keep running, whipping your head back and forth to try and stay alert. Your steps grind the halt as you see more drones closing in from directly in front of you. Some trolls charge ahead, intent on dodging around the drones, but you wouldn't risk the same. Right now, they weren't much closer than the drone behind you, but they still cut off your escape route and you sure as hell weren't about to get closer. You feel tears building in your eyes as you rack your thinkpan for somewhere to go, for something to do, but it felt like planning was impossible right now. All you could think about was how fucked you were. How you were going to get culled.  


You had to move. It didn't matter where, but if you stood still you would definitely get culled. You desperately search for an escape route again, somewhere the drones might not be and decide to run to your east. You didn't want to go this way. You had seen drones lane in this part of the neighborhood, but you had to take the risk. You were pretty sure there were going to be drones anywhere you went, and at least you didn't see any that way right now. Ahead of you and behind you were covered, and you had started fleeing from the west in the first place. A few other trolls pick up on the same idea as you and resume their sprint. You join them.  


You’ve hardly been running for a minute, but it was enough time for almost all the trolls who had run away with you to scatter. You feel a hint of optimism fighting it's way up inside of you. Maybe you could escape. You were close to the edge of the neighborhood now. You had a chance.  


Your hopes are crushed when a drone is suddenly flung from a huge alley and straight towards you. You dive out of the way, bloodpusher pounding and hiss in pain as a few pieces of broken glass cut your legs. You scramble to your feet, trying to run again, but you hear the drone stand up, hear the familiar hiss of a laser charging.  


This was it.  


You were going to die.  


After all that running you were still going to get culled. 

You close your eyes, but your body doesn’t stop moving. You wait for the pain of being incinerated, but instead, the instantly recognizable sounds of psionics fill your ears. It drowns out the noise of any laser entirely. You look back, searching for the troll who was doing it. Maybe they can save you. Fly you the fuck out of here so you don't get culled right before the end.  


Your eyes widen in shock as you finally catch sight of them. It was a goldblood, his eyes crackling with energy as he picks up the drone with his brain, then starts slamming it into the pavement over and over. Arcs of yellow and blue flicker around him as he uses his power, and you watch the drone begin to break apart.  


He was going to kill it. You feel a small relief. You could work with that. You were going to be okay. You could escape.  


You prepare to start running again, your eyes sweeping into the alley that the drone had flown from. Maybe there were more trolls with psionics there? Was it safer here than out there? You had no idea where you even running to. If Outglut was suddenly getting massacred, you can’t imagine any other lowblood neighborhood was going to be spared the same treatment. You grin as a flash of yellow clothes and dark hair meet your eyes. Another goldblood! You start running towards them, your choice made. As you grow closer you finally can take notice of the goldblood’s dark, empty eyes.  


They had voidrot, which means not only could they not help you, but right now, they’re a sitting quackbeast. A strong sense of deja vu hits you. She looks so familiar, had you met that troll before? Your mind races as you try to figure out what to do. Could you leave her there? Should you turn around? She was sitting there, huddled up at the front of the alley barely concealed. Her arms wrapped around her legs that were curled into her chest.  


You take another glance back at the goldblood killing the drone and feel our dreams being crushed once again. Another drone was flying his way, and by extension, yours. It didn’t look like he had noticed yet. He was too distracted with tossing the drone around like a rag doll to see.  


You consider opening your mouth to shout a warning, but what good would that do? With the way his psionics were flaring, there wasn’t a chance in hell he could hear you. You couldn’t get closer either. You would get fried instantly by the energy around him. Getting closer also met closer to drones, something you absolutely refused to do.  


Your look back at the goldblood with voidrot and your body continues its route towards her. You couldn’t leave her. If the goldblood fighting hadn’t noticed the other drone heading his way now, he never would. Maybe you could get the other goldblood to safety. Maybe she knew somewhere to hide.  


You’re at the alley before you know it, reaching out and grabbing the goldblood’s hand. Her face was obscured by her hair, but it didn’t matter. You need to leave now.  


Marsti: Get up, get up, get up! -_-   
Marsti: We have to go, there is another drone and if we don’t start running now we’re going to get culled -_-  
Marsti: We might still get culled, but if we don’t move now we’re definitely going to die -_-  


She yanked her hand away and you feel yourself begin to panic. Why the fuck did you run to help her? All you did was ensure both of you were going to die. You’re so fucking stupid.  


Folykl: fuck off i can't leave my moirail  


Wait. You had heard the voice before. Your deja vu fades, while your desire to not leave her ratchets up.  


Marsti: Folykl, fuck it’s me Marsti -_-  
Marsti: There is another drone coming -_-  
Marsti: Unless your moirail starts running now he’s going to die, and if we don’t start running we’re both going to die -_-  


You reach out and grasp her hand once again, tugging on it again. If she didn’t come with you this time you have no idea what you were going to do. You didn’t want to leave her. No matter how much you probably should. You look down the alleyway and see it open up onto a street parallel to the one her moirail was on. There were no drones in sight there. You had a chance. You might be able to survive.  


You cringe as you hear a scream tear through the air. You turn back to the goldblood battling the drone and dread fills your bloodpusher. The second drone had landed and had shot it's culling fork straight through the goldblood’s chest, creating a massive wound. His blood began to spill rapidly into the street, pooling around him in a sea of gold. You couldn’t see his face, but you guessed he wore an expression of pure agony. Even if he somehow got away now he was going to bleed out. You were sure of it.  


You want to scream.  


Instead, you stare, simply waiting for his collapse, for him to fall to the ground like so many others, wait for the drones to turn their attention to you next, but somehow he remained standing. His psionics further surging around him, crackling more potently with every second. His scream of pain begins to transform into one of raw rage and power. He levitates into the air, his psionics giving another impossibly powerful flare. Stray bolts that had been arcing off him grew in size and began to ravage what few standing buildings were left in this area. With a start, you realized he was going to overload himself, destroying himself and everything else in the area. Including you.  


You look back down and exhale quickly. You try to force yourself to be calm, try to fight back your panic. Crouching down, you throw Folykl over your shoulders and start moving. Fuck pulling her along, she was being far too uncooperative. She would slow you down like this, but with the distraction, her soon-to-be-dead moirail was providing your chances of escape were looking much brighter. Assuming his final act didn’t kill both of you that is.  


Folykl: put me down you fucking bitch!!!  
Folykl: i'm going to suck you dry i cant leave him!  
Marsti: He’s going to fucking die -____-  
Marsti: He’s about to blow the fuck up and destroy everything -_-  


You’re glad she isn’t that heavy. She was probably the skinniest and lightest troll you’ve ever met, her clothes obscuring who scrawny body. Still, hope she doesn’t make good on your promise. Your lack of psionics meant that if she really started draining you, you would probably collapse and then promptly get culled. You hoped she could wait. She would have to wait. You both were going to die if you didn’t. You weren’t sure where you planned on letting her charge up, but it didn’t matter. You had to not die now, not dying later was a future problem.  


She is not cooperative and you can feel her nails and fangs dig into you several times as you make your mad dash, riding the high of your adrenaline as much as you can. You manage to push off the pain, but Folykl continues struggling all the same.  


Marsti: You would think you wouldn’t want to die you fucking idiot -________________-  
Marsti:. Why are you being so difficult? -____________________-  


You leave out why you want to help. The part about you really not wanting to see another lowblood get culled. You hope she doesn’t ask you why doesn’t make you think. Maybe she doesn’t care. That would be for the best.  


You bolt down the alleyway and make it onto the street. You realize that your words seemed to have finally reached Folykl, and had stopped trying to thrash away from. You nearly sigh and relief and keep running, every muscle in your body burning as you try to create as much distance as possible.  


You see it before you feel it. A violent explosion of gold overhead. You dive to the ground with Folykl, grabbing her to pull the two of you together. You hoped you were far enough away to survive. Hoped that your fellow lowblood was too injured to bring all of his energy to bear.  


The sound of his death rockets through the air and you are briefly deafened. You feel the earth begin to shake and feel small bits of rubble and debris striking you. You close your eyes and pull Folykl closer. At least if you got culled here you wouldn’t be culled alone.  


The earth stops shaking, and you look up, wincing in pain as you do. Your ears were ringing and you still couldn’t hear anything, but you were able to look around and take in the scene.  


The entire block had been destroyed, the lowbloods stray energies tearing down any building higher than a foot off the ground. The alleyway you had just ran through had been annihilated. Your eyes catch sight of a small crater, with pieces of destroyed drones scattered around the area. You look down at Folykl, and finally let yourself relax in inch.  


It looked like she was unharmed. You want to whoop for joy, but when you process Folykl's expression your joy vanishes.  


Yellow tears were streaming down her face as she silently cried. You can tell that she was trying to fight it back and even in your current situation, you give her a moment. A minute passes and her tears stop. She turns to look at you. You grab her hand once again and try to pull her up. She follows your numbly. Still connected, the two of you stagger forward and away from Outglut.  
__________________________________________________________________________ 

You do your best to force the events of earlier tonight out of your head. Dwelling on it wouldn't get you anywhere. Still, the thoughts linger. You sigh, rubbing your hair roughly and move your eyes to the vape that you had sat on your desk. You lean black in your chair, glancing at your monitors. You wanted to be high. You deserved it after the shit you had seen. Besides, there wasn’t much more you could tonight either. You had already done more than enough. You idly check the progress of some of the tasks you had recently automated. Right now, most of your energy was spent searching for someone. You were raking through Thrashthrust, trying to find a tealblooded troll whose writing style matched a very interesting note you had found. Some of it was just boring shit about a project the tealblood had been working on, but the rest of it? The rest of it was cull worthy.  


You don’t really know what inspired you to start looking for them, but considering what you had seen tonight, you don’t regret making the call. You may not be one of the lowblood rights trolls, but that could change. You could do your part. Whatever the fuck that means. You couldn’t just watch Trizza brutally trample on three castes worth of trolls. Maybe if you could find the tealblood you could figure out what more you could do other than watch things happen in horror and try to send drones away. Maybe the tealblood had access to the rebel network. Trolls you could contact, tell you what you could do to help. You could work with a network. Networks were your whole jam.  


For now though, you were just anxious. You knew that you were starting down a path you couldn’t turn away from, but honestly, you were already pretty much there. If word ever got out about your hacking or mother grub forbid, that you were the one who sent the drones to kill the purplebloods, your ass was toast. Knowing that you already were screwed didn’t make you feel better though.  


You glance back down at the vape again and sigh. Fuck it. This was probably going to take all day anyway. Even as your clock told you dawn had nearly arrived you still didn’t feel very tired. Hopefully vaping would help knock you out. You hadn’t let yourself indulge in pedigrees, so your tolerance had to be low. Thinking of vaping reminds you of a lowblood streamer you like to watch. You haven’t caught up with their stream in ages. Your fingers fly over your keyboard as you pull up their stream, ready to relax to some moisturewave. You smile as you see an unfamiliar background. It looked like the goldblood was in some sort of cabin? There was a window that was behind them, but all you could see was a particularly large beehive. Maybe they had escaped to a friend's hive? You make a mental note to try and find out where they were.  


You take a closer look at the troll and laugh. You could tell they had just vaped too, the huge clouds of purple floating behind them a decent tip-off. They’re nodding their head slowly to the music and you feel yourself relaxing. You’re somewhat surprised to see them on camera. Usually, they put themselves off to the side, but this time they were front and center. Maybe now that the highbloods had decided to start culling they decided to stop hiding.  


You didn’t want to think about highbloods or culling right now. All you wanted to do was the same thing they were doing. Sit back with your eyes clothes, let the thick vapor dissolve your worries, and let the music take you away. You look around their room, making a final attempt to piece together where they are, but once again fail.  


Fuck. You were so close to being able to relax, but if you didn’t start a search for them now it was going to drive you insane. You start digging through your programs, and you run the same program you’re using to find the tealblood. You hope you can find them.  


With that done, you kick back in your chair and reach for your vape. You close your eyes and let the music fill you.  


You bring the vape to your lips and take a deep inhale, holding for a few seconds, then blowing out. You feel the familiar burn in your bellowsacks, but manage to suppress any coughing. A familiar pressure starts to build in your head, but you bring the vape up once again and take another deep inhale. This time, you do violently cough, covering your mouth as you wheeze.  


Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea, but oh well. You already feel the world slipping away and you hum in delight at the loss of control. You let your eyes open and gaze blankly at the cloud of purple smoke that floated around you. You know it’s just the drugs talking, clouding your thinkpan, but you want to detach further, want to pull away from reality for a bit. You indulge the thought, mouthing the word and giggle lightly. You finally say it out loud.  


Mallek: detach;  


When the word leaves though, it sours. A small, but persistent ball of tension that had been sitting in your stomach seems to grow. A bolt of discomfort strikes you, but you take a deep breath, trying to fight back the rising stress.  


It doesn’t work.  


The tension starts to spill your vein, spilling into every part of you, making your limbs heavy. You try to force yourself to breathe, try to get more air, but your chest is constricting, some sort of invisible force wrapping around it and tightening down. Your eyes open wide and you look frantically around the room. Was this Psionics? Was there someone in your hive? Your eyes frantically search your monitors as you look for any security warnings. The letters are too hard to process though, your vision is still too blurry from the vape, your thinkpan too sluggish to calculate.  


Your chest tightens even further and then you’re gasping for air, trying to pull in as much air ass possible with each breath, but it’s not enough. Your move to stand, but your legs are shaking, too unstable to hold your weight. A sharp chirp pulls your attention to your screens, but you’re too far gone to notice it, too overwhelmed. You try to move again, but your whole body is trembling and all you accomplish is flopping onto the floor.  


Unbidden, images of last night's lowblood slaughter fill your pan. Trolls running wildly away, trolls laying culled in the street, their blood pouring onto the earth. Drones hunting. Shooting. Stabbing. Trolls dying. You’re going to die too. You can feel it. You know you’re going to die. You’re going to get culled. That must be what this was. You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to die and you won’t even know what kills you. You were going to die. Die. Die. Die. Die. diediediediediediediediediediediediediedie FUCK.  


You’re not sure how long you lay on the floor, but it had been long enough that you have begun to feel cold. It had also been enough time to decide that you were not going to die. You’ve stopped shaking and slowly, thoughts are fighting their way through your still intoxicated thinkpan. Where were you? Why were you on the floor? You decide it doesn’t matter. You reach a hand up to rub at an eye and stare bewildered as it comes back wet and tinted with cerulean. You were crying? You decide it doesn’t matter. You climb unsteadily to your feet and make a path straight for your recuperacoon. You don’t care what time it is. You felt like you almost just died. You need to sleep.  


You sink into the sopor, letting your eyes slide shut. Your body still feels heavy and you have a pounding headache, but at least the panic was gone. Every bad feeling was being ratcheted up by the fuzziness vaping left in your pan, and you hiss in annoyance. Fuck this. You were going to fucking sleep.  


Your last thought before sleep drags you off is of lowbloods running.  
___________________________________________________________________ 

Folykl is silent as you drag her along. She has climbed onto your back, wrapping her arms around your neck and her legs around your hips as she rode your back. The adrenaline you had is dying, and you can feel the pain of the day returning, but you push past it. All you had to do was walk. You don’t move your arms to help her, nor do you try to start a conversation. What would you even say? “Sorry your moirail died?” With all of your social grace, if you opened your mouth you would say something like that. Besides, she didn’t seem that torn up about. To be fair, seeing your quadrant mates die as a lowblood wasn’t a particularly novel experience. You wonder if she only was in a quadrant with that other goldblood to leech his energy.  


The two of you are trekking down a road that leads away from the city. You hoped you were going the right way. In your scramble to escape the city, you hadn’t thought of many ideas of where to hide, but your memory supplied you with the perfect possibility. That weird alien who had floated through once had posted pictures of their hive once. Some old watchtower just outside of Thrashthurst, far enough away from Outglut to be safe, but close enough to Thrashthrust that you could go back for supplies. You weren’t sure if you hoped they were there or not. With the way the drones were acting, they had probably gotten culled.  


A sharp pang of bitterness fills your thinkpan at the thought. Sure, the alien was pretty weird, but they were nice. They didn’t care that you were a lowblood, really didn’t know shit about Alternia despite their insistence that they had spent nearly half a sweep there. It was nice to be treated like an equal like you were worth something more than just being cullbait.  


Folykl: i need energy  
Folykl: i am going to die if i dont fucking feed  


Fuck. You were afraid of that. Your eyes search around your environment desperately, and you let out a shocked gasp. There. It was tucked away near a cliff, almost invisible in the coming daylight. Fuck. The sun was coming. Thank gog you found shelter.  


Marsti: Wait for another few minutes I found somewhere we can rest -_-  
Folykl: what part of “im going to fucking die” doesn't make sense to you?  
Folykl: fuck it  
Folykl: you have plenty you're so full of shit  


You suddenly sense something pulling at you, unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. It was like standing up from sopor and feeling it almost pull you back down into your ‘coon, but more internal. Surprisingly though, you don’t feel tired. The pulling was strange, but your feet keep moving nonetheless. You consider throwing Folykl off of you, but you were so fucking tired. You didn’t want to fight with her now and whatever she was doing was barely affecting you. You do feel Folykl stiffen on your back and suddenly her hands are in your hair, tearing your head back as she hisses in your ear.  


Folykl: what the fuck?  
Folykl: hey nooksniffer   
Folykl: if you such strong psionics why the fuck didn't you use them?????  
Folykl: kuprum got culled using his   
Folykl: my moirail fucking died trying  
Folykl: you know what? i'm taking more  


You feel the pulling grow stronger. This time, you do drop her, whipping and swinging your hips as you reach down to force her legs to unclasp from your waist. Her weight if flung off of you and the drained sensation immediately stops. Folykl lands in a heap a few feet from you, her already dirty face and clothes getting covered with even more dirt. You turn and shoot her a glare.  


Marsti: What the fuck is your deal??-___________________-  
Marsti: If you want to die I will leave you in the dirt right now -_____-  
Marsti: I don’t even know what you’re talking about either, if I had psionics I wouldn’t have been running from drones, I would of done literally anything else -__________________________-  
Folykl: fuck you  
Folykl: you grabbed me and forced me to come with you bitch   
Folykl: and here you could have actually done something! Folykl: i thought you just had a bunch built up cause you were weak as fuck  
Folykl: instead you're like a quarter as strong as kuprum was  
Folykl: how the fuck did you not know you have them  
Marsti: Maybe because I don’t fucking have them -_-  
Marsti: Now do you want to die? -_-  
Marsti: Or do you want to get on my back and not get roasted by the fucking sun? -_-  


Folykl glares at you, opening her mouth to retort, but then pausing. She stares at your face, her empty eyes somehow locking onto your own. Her expression is locked in a scowl, her fangs slightly bared as she does her best to stare you down. You’re not sure if your own glare is even doing anything, but your arms are still crossed over your chest as you return her look.  


You think she'll relent. The venom of her words had taken quite a downturn after you had escaped Outglut, and you're starting to think that being abrasive was just a personality trait of hers. No. You don't just think, you knew it had to be.  


Folykl: fucking fine whatever  
Folykl: let's go  
Folykl: i still need more energy and even if you can use your fucking psionics   
Folykl: so i'm taking it  


You say nothing and grunt your assent as you walk over. The drain wasn’t even that bad now that you think about it. It was just startling. You still wanted to say no to her sucking all your energy away like a damn rainbowdrinker, but know she’s right. She’s going to die if she can’t drain you. You’ll have to suck it up.  


You crouch down and then turn your back her. You reach back to grab her wrists, forcing them around your neck again. She gets the message and hobbles forward, wrapping her legs around your waist once more. You wince as you feel the pressure return. You were cut and bruised all over and your small break brought it all back into sharp focus. You could deal with that later. Right now, you needed to get to the alien’s hive.  


You struggle to stand again and push forward, forcing the pain into the back of your head. You feel the draining sensation occurs once again, but you’re too tired to care. You needed to get out of the sun. You needed to sleep. You hope that alien slept in sopor.  


You reach the base of the watchtower and sigh. You could do this.  


You reach one hand up and grab the first rung of the ladder, hauling yourself slowly upwards. Dawn was vast approaching and you probably only had a few more minutes before the sun’s rays started to beat down. You barely made it in time. You finally haul yourself up in, make your way to a wall, then gently sit against it. Or rather, you press Folykl against it, since she was still stubbornly attached to your back. You would complain, but the constant pulling has become oddly soothing, not that you would ever tell her that. Her weight around you is oddly comforting as well and with a start, you realize that the amount of physical contact between you two could easily be misinterpreted as pale.  


You ignore it and take in the Hive. It was small and cluttered. A small table sat in the middle of the room and several walls were dominated by large pieces of now-defunct Alternian technology. There were a few scattered keepsakes, but you don’t spot a recuperacoon anywhere. Where the hell did that alien sleep? You guess they didn’t need sopor. You try to stand up to take a closer look around but are stopped by Folykl’s weight. You hiss in frustration.  


Marsti: You gonna let go of my back now? -_-  
Folykl: no  


You grumble unhappily. You’re not sure what you expected honestly. After all, it's not like you can say her response surprised you. You decide to try a different tactic.  


Marsti: Are you ever going to let go of me? -_-  
Folykl: fuck off i don't like this either but you are the only source of energy and its youre fault im here so dont start bitching now  
Marsti: That didn’t answer my question -_-  
Folykl: answer your own fucking question dumbass  
Folykl: you seemed to know a lot about voidrot before   


You’re too tired to argue. That and you know she’s right. Letting go for longer than a minute would probably be a death sentence. You couldn’t feed her as much as her moirail had. You wouldn’t be able to charge her up to the point where she could be alone for more than an hour right now. Maybe never.  


Marsti: Fine -_-  


You glance down at your clothes and wince. You were covered in blood and dirt, but you knew you needed to take a look at your wounds to make sure there wasn’t glass or debris wedged in them. You glance around the hive and nearly smile. The place was a wreck. If you were in a better mood, you would have liked to clean it. Now wasn’t the time though. You continue searching, then perk up as you spot a relatively large first aid kit on the floor. You alien friend probably needed it, but it looks like they weren’t here anymore.  


Marsti: Let me go for a second, I’m going to grab the first aid kit -_-  


Folykl says nothing, but you feel her limbs release you. You cross the room in a few strides, snatch up the first aid kit and then move to stand in front of her.  
Marsti: If you want to move, now’s your chance -_-  


She rolls her sightless eyes, but then she sprawls onto her stomach, reaching out hands as she does so. You feel her grasp your legs. She doesn't look up at you, but you can still see her breathing hard. You have a feeling that even that small flop took a lot more out of her then you looked. You knew that trolls with voidrot would die if they couldn’t drain someone, but you didn’t know they could die this fast. You look down and you're stuck with a harsh note of both guilt and pity. You try to ignore the pity part and opt to focus on the guilt. She really didn’t have a choice. She wasn’t clinging to you by choice. You were pretty sure she was close to hating you if she didn’t already. It made sense. You dragged her away from her moirail, forced her into some tower. Some troll she barely knows. You guess it’s better than leaving her to die, but the situation you forced her into was leaving a bad taste in your mouth.  


Your ignore it. First aid first, feelings later.  


You sit down and prop open the kit, fishing out supplies as you prepare. You press your hand in your shirt and brood. You were going to have to take this off. You could feel dry blood on your stomach and you need to clean the wounds. You stare hard at Folykl as you think. She was staring right at your stomach, but you were almost positive she was blind. She had to be. Her eyes were just black holes. You start to reach down, but jump as her sharp voice interrupts you.  


Folykl: holy shit stop fucking staring at me   
Folykl: you know i can see you right?  
Marsti: Sure -_-   
Folykl: lmao  
Folykl: lmao lmao lmao you're fucking dumb  
Folykl: i didn'tt think you were but it turns out you're fucking highblood dumb  
Folykl: how did you think i know where you are?  
Marsti: Because you’re literally holding me right now? -__-  
Folykl: fuck off  
Folykl: not like i want to  
Folykl: i can see your energy which means i can see where you are  


Your silent. Suddenly, a few things make more sense. The way she was able to find your eyes so quickly, the way she always knew where you were to grab you. You wonder what you looked like to her? Was she able to pick up on the sharp angles of her own face? See her fangs hanging out of her mouth. You’d admit that she wasn’t the prettiest troll, but you wondered if she felt the same about you. You decide to steer away from the topic of sight.  


Marsti: Cool. -_-  
Marsti: Then close your eyes, I have to take off my shirt -_-  
Folykl: i can't see you like that dumbass   
Marsti: I’m sure your highness, now look away -___-  


She huffs and shoots you another harsh look, but turns her head away nonetheless. You were surprised she took that barb lying down. You reach your hands down and strip off your shirt, wincing as you catch sight of your torso. Dark black and blue bruises covered it and there were a few shallow cuts that had finally stopped bleeding. You sigh. It could be worse. You could be dead.  


You get to work, quickly cleaning and bandaging your wounds. You were lucky to not have anything too severe. You finish quickly, cringing as you put your sweat and blood-soaked shirt back over your head. You wiggle out of pants next, repeating the same process before getting dressed once again.  


Marsti: Let me look you over -_-  
Folykl: no  


You open your mouth to argue, but quickly shut it. She looks fine, and at this point, you weren’t going to push her. If she needed her injuries taken care of, she’d need to say as much, because as it stands, it wasn’t worth it. You just wanted to sleep. You pack up the kit and push it aside, then glance around the room for somewhere to pass out. You nodding in satisfaction when you see a large pile of blankets and pillows nearly hidden away in a nook of the room.  


Marsti: Fine -_-  
Marsti: But I’m going to sleep, so either hold on to me or get dragged across the floor -_-  
Folykl: why do you have to move to sleep?  
Folykl: if you're so tired whats wrong with right here?  
Folykl: there is no way this alien has a recuperacoon  
Marsti: They don’t have a recuperacoon, but they have a big pile -_-  
Marsti: i’d rather lay in a pile then on the floor -__-  
Folykl: fine  


You expect her to crawl around to mount herself onto your back once again, but grunt in surprise as she lifts herself up and sits in your lap instead, wrapping her legs around your waist and arms around your shoulders. She buries her face into your shoulder as well, and then suddenly relaxes into you. You feel the draining pick up again, this time slightly stronger, but it was far beyond background noise at this point. You feel your face flush a shade close to crimson and grunt in shock.  


Marsti: What the fuck has no one ever taught you personal space?? -_____________-  
Folykl: lmao get over yourself   
Folykl: never touched another troll or something ?  


You huff in indignation, but you really don’t want to spend your last moments awake trading barbs. You climb shakily to your feet, make your way over to the pile, and promptly collapse again. You instantly relax into the soft material and wiggle around to get comfortable. You don’t have to try very hard. You don’t want to admit it, but having Folykl clinging tightly to you was surprisingly mice.  


The draining had somehow become soothing and calming, and you feel a sudden surge of irritation boiling inside of you. It also seems like she had taken your advice, and cleaned herself. She smelled just about as bad as you probably did now. You wonder why you're putting up with her. She has been nothing but a bitch to you this entire time, but somehow she was making the trauma of the evening more distant. You consider complaining, telling her to reposition, but you can feel sleep claiming you.  


Later. Tomorrow night. You would enjoy this numbness for now. Before you realized everything you've lost. Before the pain truly sets in. You were good at keeping the negative emotions away and it seemed like Folykl was too. At least for today. You hoped you could keep them at bay forever.  


You fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, read my new web serial:


	3. Choices and Caverns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends. Again no beta, so if there are typos and mistakes, I apologize. As always, I will go through and make sure there are none in the future once again, but as of now I think it's fine.  
All of Galek's citations are in the end author note. If you ever would like to find them instatnly, simply Cntrl + F and search for the number.  
As always, I hope you enjoy!

Galzem: The-cullings-did-not-work-as-planned-your-highness   
Trizza: Ψhat do you mean they didn’t work as planned?  
Trizza: Last I checked, Ψe had culled whole fuck ton of gutterbloods so it seems like it Ψorked.   
Galzem: Yes-but-the-lowbloods-who-survived-the-inital-cull-have-started-banding-together   
Trizza: That’s fine.  
Trizza: Gutterblood trash is hard to get rid of.   
Trizza: Keep culling them.  
Galzem: Of-course   
Trizza: HoΨ is my image doing?   
Trizza: Have I been recognized as the rightful Condece?   
Galzem: The-other-seadwellers-are-not-thrilled-but-they-have-relented  
Trizza: Culled the revolutionaries?   
Galzem: There-were-some-cullings-as-was-needed  
Galzem: The-rest-of-the-sea dwellers-have-decided-to-recognize-your-rule   
Galzem: The-purplebloods-have-been-less-eager  
Trizza: Ψhat do you mean???   
Galzem: Apparently-some-of-your-drones-destroyed-one-of-their-churches   
Galzem: The-caste-has-been-silent-since   
Trizza: ΨHAT?  
Trizza: HoΨ the FUCK did that happen?   
Galzem: I-am-not-sure   
Galzem:The-purplebloods-had-destroyed-the-drones-before-any-investigation-could-occur   
Trizza: I Ψant to know.  
Trizza: Get Ψhoever the fuck on it that needs to be.  
Trizza: Get a gutterblood if you have to.   
Trizza: Ψhat are they saying about me???  
Galzem: They-have-officially-been-silent   
Trizza: No you dipshit.   
Tirzza: Ψhat have other purplebloods on chittr said???  
Galzem: The-response-has-been---less-then-favorable   
Trizza: ShoΨ me   
Galzem: With-all-respect-Your-Imperious-Condecsion-I-do-not-think-looking-at-them-would-be-a-good-idea   
Galzem: As-previously-said-they-are-less-than-favorable  
Trizza: Shut up.  
Galzem: ---  
Trizza: Good.   
Trizza: NoΨ.  
Trizza: ShoΨ me.   
Galzem: As-you-wish   
Trizza:...   
Galzem: ---  
Trizza: …  
Trizza: This is…   
Trizza: THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   
Galzem: Your-highness-I-do-not-think-   
Trizza: FUCK Ψhat you think!  
Trizza: Are you even seeing the shit they are saying about me???   
Trizza: I do NOT have a big forehead!   
Trizza: Ψhat is this musclebeast shit about quadrant blurring??   
Trizza: Are you seeing this fuckery????  
Trizza: And...   
Trizza: And these memes...  
Trizza: Ψhat are these FUCKING memes???????????  
Trizza: They’re fucking TRASH utter garbage, but they’re everyΨhere.  
Trizza: Ψho the fuck MADE these memes??????????????????????   
Galzem: I-imagine-purplebloods-did-your-highness   
Trizza: Ψhere…   
Trizza: Ψhy am I seeing more of these clowns memes then my own?   
Galzem: You-have-not-released-your-meme-initiative-for-this-campaign-your-highness   
Trizza: Ψasn’t that tealblood supposed to do it?  
Trizza: Ψhy the fuck hasn’t she done it yet?  
Galzem: I-neglected-to-inform-her-due-to-the-possibility-of-culling   
Trizza: Explain  
Galzem: She-has-not-gotten-culled-yet-but-every-tealblood-in-that-bookhive-she-works-in-is-slotted-to-be-culled-tonight   
Trizza: Ψhy?  
Trizza: Ψhen did I approve this???  
Galzem: Last-night-your-highness  
Galzem: Several-tealbloods-are-suspected-gutterblood-sympathizers  
Galzem: It-is-impossible-to-know-who-else-is-in-on-the-treachery-so-the-whole-hive-has-to-go  
Galzem: The-legislators-all-agree   
Trizza: Ugh   
Tirzza: I forget about that kind of boring shit.   
Trizza: Fine. Whatever. Cull them all, but spare that one tealblood, her memes are too good to pass up.   
Galzem: Yes-your-highness   
Trizza: Also  
Trizza: Cull any purplebloods who get in the way of my plans   
Galzem: Your-highness?   
Trizza: You heard me, any purpleblood that disapproves of my rule, cull.   
Galzem: ---   
Trizza: Something to say?   
Galzem: N-   
Trizza: …  
Galzem: No  
Galzem: I-will-see-to-it   
____________________________________________________________

You wake up the next night almost as tired as when you went to sleep. You groan in frustration and try to sink deeper into your ‘coon. At least vaping did one something right. At least it made you sleep. 

As for everything else, maybe not so much. You’re not even sure what happened last night. Why did you think something was trying to kill you? Why the hell did you think you were dying? You open your eyes and glower at the vape rig. You had only heard of one troll that freaked out vaping, but they were a distant connection at best. You had always been fine, but you guess that had changed. Can't even have nice things anymore huh? You resolve to throw it away.  


You stew in your recuperacoon for another five minutes, until your restlessness rouses you. You were annoyed that your thoughts had snatched any opportunity of falling asleep or relaxing away from you. You guess you shouldn’t be shocked, you were rarely able to fall back asleep once you had woken up, but tonight you could have really used it. No sense dwelling on the past thought. There were things to hack, results to check.  


A rebellion to help.  


You step out of the ‘coon and stand up, letting the excess sopor roll off of you. You frown at the state of your clothes, soaked in slime and wrinkled. Did you seriously go to sleep with them on?  


You make quick work of stripping them off and getting dressed. You run through your twilight routine in near autopilot and find yourself thinking about the vape again, simply unable to banish it from your mind. You _ needed _ to know why you panicked.  


Mallek: search for “vaping feeling of death;”  


You frown as your computer lists the top results in its robotic voice. Apparently, there was nothing to find but forum posts about other trolls who had experienced the same thing, nothing to tell you what had actually happened. Fuck. You were going to have to ask him, weren’t you? You could dig for more information, but it was time-consuming and you didn't have the patience. At least for once, you would be happy to hear the blueblood ramble  


Mallek: message pretentious prince, “i have a question and the answer != on goergle, want to help?”  


It was a bit early to be awake, but the blueblood ran his life like damn clockwork, so you were pretty sure he was up. You were glad that weird alien had introduced you to him. He was surprisingly useful in your quest for more obscure knowledge that never made it's way online.  


You finish your morning grooming and make your way over to your computer, plopping down in your chair. You check the two searches you had running and sigh. Nothing there yet. You open chittr next and search up Trizza, curious to see what the word was. Now that the dust had settled on the first of her mass cullings, there were bound to be takes flying all over about it. Might as well gauge the public.  


When the results pop up you promptly lose your shit laughing.  


Apparently, the purplebloods hadn’t taken kindly to Trizza’s ambitions and had brutally started roasting her. Better yet, the memes they were making had to be some of the funniest you’d seen in awhile. Purpleblood humor may be shit most of the time, but every now and then they land on something perfect. You filter by top, eager to get to the cream of the crop. As the results reorient and show themselves, you feel a chunk of your good mood fade.  


The top post was from some purple blood named Chahut. You had never heard of her, but you had certainly seen the church she was apparently the head of. She posted several pictures of dead drones, the hole in the church, a single dead purpleblood, and finally, a picture of a seadweller who was pinned to the wall in the interior of the building, a spear sticking out through their torso. There was a caption on the picture of the seadweller and your eyes read over it. You can’t decide whether you should smile or frown.  
Chahut: fishfucks here  


You decide being positive about it was the better plan. It meant that Trizza now had more enemies, and powerful ones at that. All you had to do was make sure that no one ever found out it was your fault. Which you're pretty sure was impossible at this point. Destroyed drones didn't exactly make for good evidence.  


You flick through a few more memes and then close out of chitter to start working on some code you had been toying with. You quickly lose track of time as your work, time fading into the background as you plug away. You really want to finish this tonight. You had been messing around with this code for way too long. It didn't even do anything interesting. Instead of being aggressive, instead of letting you take easier control of drones, it just ensured that when you inevitably fucked up, your tracks were covered. In hindsight, if you hadn’t procrastinated on it you could have used it when you were messing with the culling drones. You curse past you. Lazy asshole. You find your self almost thanking the purplebloods for inadvertently helping.  


Computer: Message from Galekh received  


You flinch hard, jumping slightly in your seat as your computer's voice enters your aural canals.  


Mallek: read message  


Computer: From, Pretentious Prince, I understand that I have an extensive collection of knowledge, but I am not at your beck and call 1. Furthermore, if you cannot find what you are looking for on Georgle, I suspect it is of a nature that is less than legal.2 While I am certainly able and have assisted you with such matters in the best, I must once again point out, that doing so is engaging in reckless behavior on my end.  


You snicker. Nowhere in that message was a "no."  


Mallek: respond “lol yeah so you in;?”  
Computer: From, Pretentious Prince: If you insist then yes, I suppose I can help you, but I will require something in exchange.3 Go eat, I am sure you have not done that today and I will not have you raiding my mealblock this time.4  


Your stomach gives a growl as if to complement his statement. You guess you were pretty hungry. When did you last eat? You’re pretty sure you had eaten earlier last night, but you weren’t sure. It wouldn’t be the first time you had accidentally skipped a meal. You turn the thought over your head and let out a huff of disappointment. Yeah. He was right. You should eat.  


Mallek: respond be there in an hour;  


You click over his notes and arch your eyebrows, grinning. Oh. So _ that’s _ what he wanted in exchange. You could work with that. In fact, it would be a welcome distraction.  


Your stomach growls again and you roll your eyes. You stand up from your chair and make your way down to your own mealblock. You sniff the air cautiously, then nearly gag at the odor. Ugh. You needed to clean. Why have you kept putting this one-off? You liked to cook, it was just the cleaning part that got you.  


You make your way over to your hunger trunk and yank it open, going straight for your milk. You were doing grubflakes. Besides, making anything else meant that you would have to clean and you really, really didn't want to clean right now.  


You plop yourself down at your table and start eating. Fishing out your palmhusk, you mindlessly scroll through chittr, avoiding any posts about Trizza as you do. You had already gotten your dose of Trizza today, any more would be torture.  


You finish your food and dump your bowl in the sink. You were going to have to clean later anyway, so at this point, what was one more? You check the time and shrug. It was still too early to go, but sitting around was only aggravating the restless feelings you had woken up with. Whatever, you would just be early today.  


You snag your hoodie on the way out, throwing it on as you go down your hivestem. On your way down, you briefly wonder what happened to the weird alien you gave one of your hoodies too. You hadn’t seen them in awhile. You shrug once again, dismissing the thoughts. If you hadn’t seen them, they probably found somewhere more permanent to hide. Probably for the best, you have a feeling the drones would be all too happy to cull them.  
________________________________________________ 

You start walking to Galekh’s hive. Sure, you could have taken your scuttlebuggy or even called a transport, but you wanted to be as lowkey as possible. That and you left early and speeding up your journey was entirely unnecessary. Galekh might not care if you showed up slightly ahead of schedule, but if you were there in 15 minutes after saying an hour he wouldn’t be happy. And that wouldn’t do. As much as he entertained you when he was mad, that was his kismesis job. The two of you maintained a far less hostile relationship.  


You shove your hands in your pocket and let your thoughts wander. There wasn't as many trolls out as usual. Far more drones though, likely a result of Trizza megalomania picking up. The drones created a sort of tension in the air, which in all honesty, wasn’t that new. However, this tension felt different. This one promised to be the undoing of an entire city, maybe an entire planet, rather than just a single troll. You couldn't say you liked it.  


You pick up your pace and find yourself happy you lived in a highblod part of the city. You don’t think you could have stood walking through the lowblood areas right now.  


Galekh’s hive comes into view and you hurry to the door and simply let yourself in after hacking the door. Knocking was never your style after all. You make your way over to his mealblock and quickly located where he keeps his lusus’s treats. Snatching them up with a grin, you call for the goat, far louder than you need to. May as well let Xigisi know you were here too.  


Mallek: this book looks tasty as fuck;  
Mallek: i wonder if anyone here would like to take a bite?;  


You hear a loud bleat and the rapid beat of hooves on the floor. You laugh and walk over to unlatch the mealblock gate, waiting for the lusus to appear around the corner. You had to admit, Galekh's lusus was cute. He reminded you of your own, long gone lusus.  


Galekh: I know you are not feeding my lusus any book, you make this joke every time.5 Furthermore, not only are you early,6 you also have neglected to knock once again, a request that is entirely reasonable.7  


You see Galekh’s lusus round the corner and run straight through the open gate, pausing in front of you and staring up at you with inquiring eyes. You throw him one of the treats Galkeh kept, then crouch down and start petting him. Galekh has stopped talking, but you could hear him getting closer, his footsteps not nearly as quick or excited as his custodian's. By the time you’re done feeding the lusus a second treat, Galekh appears, glaring at you from the entrance his lusus had emerged from.  


Galekh: Do not think I do not know exactly what you are doing here. I do.8 You are not the trickster you make yourself out to be Mallek. I also would like to submit the idea that it is not appropriate for you to be-  


You let his words go into one ear and out the other as you finish petting his lusus. Then, you slowly stand up, tossing Galekhh a devious look as you close the gap between the two of you. Galek's words stop coming out of his mouth at a mile a minute and you innocently cock your head to the side. You take another step closer, pressing a single prong into his chest, pushing it into him lightly. You see his face take on a light blue hue and get close the gap entirely so that you are standing chest to chest, faces inches apart.  


Mallek: does mr know-it-all know whats going on here then;?  


His blush grows darker and you grin. Got him.  


Galekh: I believe so, but I would like to be sure. Please inform me.9  


You step forward and give him a light peck on the lips, before pulling back and tossing out a heated look.  


Mallek: figured it out;?  
Galekh: I think so.  


He meets you half way this time and your lips collide again. His hands sweep low, one attaching itself to your waist, the other going straight to your ass, before giving it a teasing squeeze. Straight to the point today then? You can't say you had a problem with that.  


You sigh against his mouth and press him against a wall, letting your own fingers tangle into his hair as you open your mouth slightly and lightly press your tongue against his lips, asking for entrance.  
Galekh, pulls back with a gasp and presses you as close to him as he can.  


Galekh: Respiteblock. Now.  


You grin.  


It hits you when you’re getting dressed, searching out your scattered clothes in Galekhs’ respiteblock. You had passed the point where you lie to yourself and say you only thought of this as simply transnational. Where you would find some book for Galekh and he'd kiss you in exchange, or vice versa; albeit more legally. You wish you didn’t know what it meant when your bloodpusher beat faster see him. But you did. And you didn’t even know what it had started happening. You just wish it'd stop. It was just going to make things complicated.  


Galekh: Are you okay?10 I know that you often “zone the fuck out,” but you’ve been staring at that wall for almost a minute now. Not that I mind the view.11  


You snap to attention and shoot him a lazy smile, nodding your head as you do.  


Mallek: yeah my shit = good;  
Mallek: but now that i paid up you gonna help me;?  


Galekh shakes his head but sits up anyway. You pull your hoodie back over your head and turn to see him fastening the last button on his shirt. He politely clears his throat and schools his expression into one of neutrality. Alright, you knew what that meant. Time for business.  


Galekh: What do you need?  
Mallek: alright so just listen;  
Mallek: i freaked out when i was vaping thought i was going to die;  
Mallek: obviously i didnt die and vaping = safe  
Mallek: i couldnt find anything on why it felt like that; all i could find were other trolls saying the same shit  
Mallek: nothing too serious; just wanted to see whats up;  


Galekh looked slightly taken aback, but his expression quickly hardens into one curiosity. Another half-formed remark almost leaves you, but you pause. That was his thinking face. Probably not good to fuck with him while he’s got it on. Even if it was fun.  


Galekh: What else did it feel like?  
Galekh: I am not sure I have enough information to adequately know what the hell happened.12  
Mallek: everything got real tight;  
Mallek: couldnt really breathe that kind of shit;  
Mallek: you got an idea though;?  


You try to sound as casual as possible, even though it’s pointless. Galekh knew that if you were coming to him to get an answer for something, it meant that you really wanted to know what it was.  


Galekh: Yes, I might have an idea.  


He stands up and moves to leave the room. You follow.  


Galekh: I have a collection of books that I keep hidden away, a fact I am sure you are already aware of. 13  
Mallek: private collection shit;? yeah youve never shown me it but youve talked 'bout it;  
Mallek: you doing the big reveal;? you know im into it;  


Galekh just rolls his eyes. The two of you leave his respiteblock and walk quietly to his reading room. you never spent much time in here, for obvious reasons, but you're sure the same couldn't be said about Galekh.  


You reach the door of the room and Galekh punches in a code. The door slides open and he steps aside, gesturing at you to go ahead. You step inside the room and hear the door hiss shut behind you as he joins you. He makes his way over to a bookshelf and his fingers begin to trace the various books. He finds what he’s looking and partially tugs it out. A hatch in the floor slides away a few feet in front of you and another, smaller shelf rises in its place.  


You let out a low whistle, the same thing you always do whenever he does anything interesting. You smirk as he makes a rude gesture. He meanders over and reaches for the smallest book in the stack. You were pretty sure it couldn’t have been more than 50 pages from the thickness of it. You cock your head to the side, trying to read the title from behind Galekh. He does it for you.  


Galekh: Illnesses Of The Thinkpan Vol 2.  


Galekh turns around to show you and you lift your eyebrows up, shooting him a skeptical look.  


Mallek: so youre saying there is something killing my pan;? what you think ive been eating sopor or some shits;?  


Galekh ignores you and props opens the books, turns a few pages, then nods to himself. He starts to read.  


Galekh: Signs of the (anexity attack) typically are recongized and can contain any of the following symptoms, racing heart Feeling weak, faint, or dizzy, tingling or numbness in the hands and fingers, dense of terror, or impending doom or death, feeling sweaty or having chills, chest pains, breathing difficulties, and feeling a loss of control.14  
Galekh: Particularly relevant to you, “Can be brought on by substance use.”  
Mallek: so just stop vaping and ill be good;?  
Mallek: seems to be some bullshit to me  
Mallek: cause ive definetley vaped before and never had any problems; so why the hell was this time different?  
Galekh: Have you found yourself under a greater amount of stress than usual? The book states that higher amounts of stress and pressure can increase likelihood of occurrence.15  
Mallek: oh  
Mallek: well that makes more sense then;  


Galekh face twists into an expression of concern.  


Galekh: You’ve been more stressed than usual? How is that even possible? You already are engaging in incredibly dangerous behaviors.16 Not that I worry about your safety for the most part, but I do find myself wondering what possibly has put you in the position that you feel more stressed than already had. Did you up the ante or something, decide to join the rebellion? Start filling out your quadrants?  


His words are laced with sarcasm, but you nearly recoil at how spot on his rebellion comment is. Probably better to keep your mouth shut here. Galekh might be fun to pail and maybe you had some red feelings for him, but you don’t think you’ve ever met a cerualeanblood who actually gave a shit about lowbloods, let alone indigo. You respected Galekh, but you were willing, to be honest about where his loyalties likely were.  


Mallek: damn scolding me like my lusus;? didnt know you cared that much;  
Mallek: but if you gotta know then no  
Mallek: nothing that wild; just been trying to make this damn hack work; its been pissing me off is all;  


The lie spills smoothly from your lips and you give yourself a mental back on the back. All that lying to get passwords and get into official buildings has paid off. Still, better not to linger on this topic, the more you lie the more you have to remember. At least what you said had a bit of truth to it. Those were the best type of lies after all. Best to redirect the conversation as well. You try to change the topic  


Mallek: you can really get culled for having that book;? most of this shit looks pretty harmless;  


You eye it curiously, curious as to why the empire was so intent in locking away knowledge about some shit that could happen to your thinkpan. Didn’t seem like the typical garbage they were trying to hide. This was a lot more boring.  
Galkeh: Yes  
Galekh: Well, it is perhaps more complicated than that admittedly.17  
Mallek: why;?  
Galekh: As I previously suggested, it is complicated, but I believe I can explain if you have time and are willing to listen.18  


The two of you meet eyes again and you make your choice.  


Mallek: i got time;  
Mallek: explain;  
______________________________________________________________________ 

Your eyes open, but you immediately hiss and force them shut. The sun was making its final descent, but the angle it was at made its rays shine directly above you and straight into the makeshift hive. You feel your eyes watering at the brief sight of its brightness even through your eyelids. You want to complain, but resist the urge to vocalize your irritation.  


You felt like shit. Sleeping without sopor was one of your least favorite things to do and all the soreness from yesterday has set in. How the hell did you even fall asleep?  


Folykl: fucking finally  


Oh. That was how. How had you not noticed a troll on top of you? Were you really that tired? She was still clinging to you the same as last night, except her head now simply rested on your shoulder than being buried into it. Her voice was far quieter than you had ever heard it before, the volume only slightly greater than a loud whisper.  


Folykl: what now?  
Marsti: I don’t know, we were kind of busy not dying yesterday so I didn’t think about it -_-  


Your own voice comes out just as quietly.  


Folykl: do you think the drones are still on their culling spree?  
Marsti: I don’t know -_-  
Marsti: Even if they are, it’s not like there is anything to go back to -_-  
Folykl: we're still going to get fucking culled aren't we?  
Folykl: nowhere to go  
Folykl: fucking _ bullshit _  


You want to agree, to pick up her brand of almost causal pessimism, but your desire is to do the opposite of what she's saying. To not end up a rust-colored smear on the earth. And because of that you were forced to think of any possible solution, no matter how wild. Finding an answer had been in the back of your head since you had entered the outpost and finally, in the early twilight, a hundred ideas coalesced into something decent.  


Marsti: Wait -_-  
Marsti: What about the Brooding Caverns? -_-  
Folykl: what about them?  
Folykl: is getting culled by a jade better than a drone?  
Folykl: do you have a fetish for rainbowdrinkers or something?  


You roll your eyes and try to sit up, hoping Folykl gets the message. Thankfully, she does, and she lifts herself so she isn't leaning against you and is instead just straddling your lap. You put your hands behind you and lean back on them, examining Folykl bewildered expressions as you do.  


Marsti: No, I couldn’t care less about them -_-  
Marsti: But, culling drones are banned in the caverns. Only imperial drones can come in and out. And all imperial drones care about is culling-  
Folykl: mutants?  
Folykl: defects?  
Folykl: i don't know if you you've fucking noticed but i have voidrot  
Folykl: you know one of the things that nearly puts you on the cull-on-sight list  
Marsti: No, I somehow forgot -____________-  
Marsti: Imperial drones only come through a few specific tunnels, and always head straight to the mothergrub and it's not like jadeblood are wondering every cavern route. They probably just stick to a few -_-  
Marsti: We can hide there, make a plan -__-  
Marsti: They’re not far from here -_-  


Folykl rolls her empty eyes, but otherwise seems to surrender the point.  


Folykl: i didn't know you were the damn schoolfeed  


Maybe not then.  


Marsti: Well, get schoolfed then -_-  
Marsti: Not like you have any better ideas? -__-  
Folykl: are you gonna carry me there?  
Marsti: Uh, yeah? -_-  
Marsti: Not going to make you walk 'till exhaustion -_- 

Folykl looks at your hard as if you committed some sort of grave faux pas.  


Folykl: why did you save me?  


Fuck. This was the question you were hoping you wouldn’t have to answer. What the hell were you supposed to say? You had been trying to find the best way to word it, racking your brain for the most palatable explanation, but everything always came back blank. You consider just telling her that you didn’t want to see another lowblood killed, but that feels cheap now. She wouldn’t believe it. You weren't sure if you even believed it. That’s what you had told yourself when you ran in, but it’s not like there weren’t other trolls you could have helped.  


Not like you've never lied to yourself either  


Folykl: hello??  
Folykl: did your pan shut off or something?  
Folkyl: hello ?????? anyone in the pan over there ?  
Marsti: Why does it matter? Are you going to come with me or not? -___-  
Folykl: don't try to dodge the fucking question  
Folykl: it matters because it doesnt make any sense  
Folykl: why the fuck can't you just tell me?  
Marsti: I can’t tell you because I don’t know why -_-  
Marsti: I helped you because that's just what I did at the time -_-  
Folykl: liar  
Folykl: what not want to say it ?  
Folykl: you think i’m pathetic? don’t tell me you fucking pity me  
Marsti: I’m not lying, but think what you want. If you’re too stubborn to trust me at this point, than that’s your own fucking problem -_________-  
Marsti: I’m going to the caverns though, and if you’re not coming you need to pick somewhere for me to take you unless you want me to leave you to die -_-  


Folykl stares at you and a tense moment of silence ensures. You want her to drop it. Want desperately for her to stop digging for an answer you're not even sure you could produce. Eventually, she lets her shoulders drop and speaks again.  


Folykl: fine let’s do it  
Folykl: but first that alien must have kept some fucking food here  
Folykl: we should take supplies  
Marsti: Yeah I agree. Are you going to be okay to let go for a bit? -_-  
Folykl: yeah whatever just make it quick not like i'm gonna burst into flames  


Folykl swings her legs off of you and you stand up, heading straight over to a few cabinets, digging through them like you wanted to do when you first got here. All you come back with is a pile of junk, a whole lot of nothing. You scour for a minute longer, but still, come up empty-handed. You reach up and pull at your hair, yanking hard in frustration. You wince slightly at the small burst of pain and stop. Better to leave the yanking to Folykl. Not need to tear your hair out any more than what she was going to.  


Folykl: find anything?  


You make your way back over to her, grabbing a bag that was on the floor and the first aid kit. You slide the kit into the bag and then zip it shut. You sit down, then sick your arm out, dangling the backpack in front of Folykl and reply.  


Marsti: No, apparently they never ate or something -_-  
Marsti: So we’re just going to take first-aid stuff and hope that we run across food soon. We can go awhile without it anyway. -__-  


Folykl doesn't immediately comment or object and instead simply snatches the bag from out of your hand, then throws it over her shoulders.  


Folykl: great  


Her tone is dripping with sarcasm and you bite back your own snarky remark. It wouldn’t do any good to argue now. You turn around and sit, letting Folykl climbs up and attach herself to your back once again. You're stuck with how similar she is to a bloodacari, clinging and sucking endlessly. 

As soon as she settles herself on your back, you stand. You make your way over to the exit, peering out to make sure that the sun is gone and there were no drones or other trolls outside of your makeshift shelter. For a moment, you consider simply staying here, living in the poor excuse for a hive until it all blows over. You know you can't though. Not with Fokykl, not with no sopor, and certainly not always in fear.  


You carefully climb down, all too aware of Folykl clinging tightly to you. You quickly reach the bottom and dismount. You start to walk, picking a random direction and slowly sweeping that landscape, searching for the right way to go. You knew the cavers were around here _ somewhere _ You just had no idea where.  


Folykl: for all that talk of schoolfeeding don’t even actually know where the caverns are beyond do you?  
Marsti: I know they’re close -_-  
Folykl: dumbass  
Folykl: you know the rocky ass place outside of the city?  
Marsti: By the corpsefields? -_-  
Folykl: yeah they're over there  
Folykl: or the closest entrances are  
Folykl: so get moving  


You feel her hands reach up to grab your hair and you feel her tugging you in the right direction. You consider demanding she stop doing it, but end up simply grumbling quietly. Not like she was pulling too hard. ,/br> 

You set a decent pace, looking around warily for any drones, but the night was quiet. You guess that the drones must have finished their culling run. You think of the mess they must have left behind in Outglut and shudder. You could go back. Help clean up. Shit, you would _ like _ cleaning it up.  


But what would even be the point?  


You weren’t even sure if there was an Outglut even left to clean. And if there was one, you’re not sure wandering into it a day after everyone in it was ran out or died was a good idea either. Besides, maybe you were done cleaning. Done fixing highbloods fuck-ups, painting over purpleblood graffiti.  


Folykl: we’re close go down the hill and just go into whatever tunnel that’s closest and looks the least shitty  


You jolt as Folykl’s words reach you. You had gotten last in your thoughts again, letting everything happen automatically. Fuck. You couldn’t do that. It was too dangerous to. At least Folykl seemed to know what was going on, however the hell she did it.  


Marsti: Alright -_-  


You look at the slope ahead of you and sigh.  
Marsti: Alright, do you have to seriously ride on my back for this part? -_-  
Marsti: You’re making this harder than it has to be -__-  
Folykl: can i walk the entire length of the caverns?  
Folykl: fuck no  
Folykl: you think id be clinging to your back if i could?  
Marsti: I’m not fucking asking you to walk in the caverns -___-  
Marsti: I’m asking you to walk down this hill -_-  
Folykl: ugh  
Folykl: fine  


Folykl climbs off your back and you roll your shoulders, stretching them out for when she inevitably gets back on. You take a final glance around you, you decide that slow and steady was the right approach. There didn’t seem to be anything or any troll anywhere near you. You would have plenty time to pick your way down.  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

You wince when you feel Folykl yank on your hair again, but let her direct you anyway. There wasn’t much moonlight bleeding into the cavern entrance you picked, so you had to rely on her anyway. It was dark enough that you had to press your own goggles up and out of the way to even have a chance at seeing. At least her pulling didn’t hurt too bad.  


Besides, you were only putting up with it because it seemed like Folykl knew where she was going. Almost as if she had been here before.  


A few minutes pass in utter silence and you decide to confirm the fact.  


Marsti: Are you just tugging my hair because you feel like it or do you know where you’re going? -_-  


A particularly hard yank has you grunting in pain and you nearly reach back to wrench Folykl's fronds from your head. Before you do, you feel Folykl pressing her mouth close to your ear, her voice quieter than a whisper.  


Folykl: shut the fuck up  
Folykl: i'm trying to avoid drones  
Folykl: i think we’re in a tunnel they use so just listen to me so we don't get culled  


You quiet instantly and you're bloodpusher floods you with adrenaline once again. You weren't sure if you were spending more time amped up or calmed down at this point. You search desperately for another tunnel, somewhere to duck into, but it appears the stretch you were in was a straight shot. Did imperial drones have heat vision? Did they need it? You find yourself wishing you had picked anywhere else other than the caverns. You just didn't want to die goddammit!  


Your ears pick up on the steadily growing noise of huge, footsteps behind you. You notice Folykl wheeling her head around to look for the source of the noise, but you don't even know why she bothers. You both know what it was.  


You break into as quick of a sprint as you can, letting your feet slam against the rock underneath you as you try to make your escape. If talking too loud was liable to catch the attention of drones, then you can’t imagine running somehow being better. But maybe noise didn’t matter anymore.  


Folykl: fuck fuck fuck  
Folykl: faster oh fucking ancestors faster!!!!  


Noise definitely didn’t matter anymore.  


Why did you have to be in the tunnel with drones? Why weren't they marked? There were jadebloods who used these tunnels all the time! Did they have a death wish?  


You finally approach another fork in the tunnel and Folykl pulls your hair to the left. You don't even think she has a reason to choose the direction, but you follow all the same. Your foot falls into a shallow depression in the stone and you nearly fall but manage to catch yourself and continue on. You feel a now-familiar burning in your muscles picking up again and you realize that you can't do this much longer. You needed to get as much distance, as many turns away as possible, and then you needed to rest.  


You begin to slow down, but still, turn into seemingly random passages as you continue on. You slow into a simple jog when the path gradually becoming better lit and the ground becoming less precarious. You're about to stop, about to rest, but the tunnel forks one more time and you decide to turn a final corner should be more than enough distance. You didn't want to sit in the middle of an open hall, especially considering what was behind you.  


You round the corner and something hits your face hard, making your vision turn white. You fall back, tilting yourself to the side at the last second to avoid totally crushing Folykl. There wasn't much you can do though, and you go down hard, your head slamming against the stone of the floor as you do. You feel something warm ooze out from your face and all you can do is lay on the ground, stunned.  


There is a loud conversation going on somewhere around you, but when you try to focus on the listening, your thinkpan roars in disagreement. You do your best to ignore it and focus on not blackout. Blacking out here would be a death sentence. Besides, your thinkpan supplies you with the helpful information that, if you blacked out for more than a few seconds after you were hit, you were nearly guaranteed a concussion.  


You struggle to move, but then something is gently wrapped around your head, stopping the oozing, which you now realize, must be blood. Your vision slowly returns and you blink several times, trying to dismiss the darkness that had gathered around the edges. Your hearing is next to return, and you listen as a concerned voice jabbers away above.  


Bronya: vV Like I said, I’m so sorry! Vv  
Bronya: 1. I don't know who you are! You could have been intruders.  
Bronya: 2. I now see that you're not.  
Bronya: 3.I think I know why you are in the caverns.  


Your thinkpan is still a bit fuzzy, but you can finally make out the face excitedly chattering away above you. You tense your muscles, making sure everything still works, and let out a quiet moan of pain at the soreness that follows. You feel something slightly cooler than you touching and you let another breath you didn’t even realize you had been holding.  


Folykl was here. She was safe. You were safe. You realize that you were still lying on the cavern floor and you recognize the corner where you had just gotten laid out. Which was good. It meant that if you did pass out, it was probably for a few seconds at most.  


However long it was, it was enough time for Folykl to sit up and put your head in her lap. You try to focus on banishing the pounding from your head when you hear Folykl sound off.  


Folykl: great you've been apologizing for way too long just tell me  Folykl: who the fuck are you??  
Bronya: Oh my! I’m sorry I did not introduce myself!  
Bronya: vV My name is Bronya! I am the leader of the Jade colony here! Vv  
Bronya: Who are you?  


You try to answer, but all that comes out of your mouth is another pained groan. Fuck. You could do this. You focus on the troll above you and take a deep breath.  


Marsti: I’m Marst- 

You cough before you can finish. Seriously? There was no way that this was related to your injury, how did you not see that coming? You close your eyes once again as you try to center yourself.  
Folykl: i'm folykl and the troll you fucked up is my...is my friend marsti 

Oh, so _ now _ you were friends? The thought and words help you focus, and you slowly let your eyes open, intent on actually taking in the details of the troll who hit you. She was a jadeblood and she looked a bit older than you, maybe by a half sweep. It could have been her height fooling you though since you were pretty sure she towered at least 4 or 5 inches above you and Folykl. A streak of jade dye lined the bangs of her long hair and her left horn had a lightning bolt-like shape at the very end, with the other curved plainly upwards. She wore a simple red skirt with suspenders and a t-shirt proudly displaying her sign. The thing that surprised you the most, though, was how concerned she looked. Especially considering that she was probably the troll that laid you out in the first place.  


Folykl: why the fuck did you attack us? can you answer that instead of just crying?  


Oh. Looks like Folykl was going to ask that question for you then. She could have been a lot nicer about it, but at least the two of you were finally on the same page. Broyna seems to take her attitude in stride.  


Bronya: Well, you were kind of running through my caverns?  
Bronya: No offense, but  
Bronya: 1. if I see another troll in the caverns and they’re not a jade, I worry. It’s my job to keep this place safe.  
Bronya: 2. vV I didn’t get a good look at you before I swung. Sorry! Things have been on edge here! Vv  


Your eyes are open all the way now and you move to sit up yourself. Your glad that the small trickle of blood you felt before had stopped, but you had no idea what you looked like. You didn't really care. You just wanted to stop this conversation from running in circles.  


Marsti: I get it -_-  
Marsti: But, you said you thought you knew why were here? -_-  
Bronya: I think so.  
Bronya: You’re running from the drones right? Trying to get to get far enough away from Thrashthrust so you can try to get to that goldbloods hive?  
Folykl: what ?  
Folykl: what are you talking about? what hive?  


Bronya suddenly looks very nervous, her expression twisting into one of fear rather than friendliness. You watch her muscles stiffen. Shit. Was she about to knock you out again? Would she do that?  


Bronya: Nothing!!!!!  
Bronya: Do you and your friend want help? I can heal you! No offense, but whatever you have in that kit is probably not enough, and I might have uh, you know…  
Bronya: Done some damage to your pan. I should check it.  


Okay, so avoiding the topic entirely then. You could deal with that. She was offering to heal you anyway. Maybe she had a medicalizer or some either tech? She was part of one of the middle castes so it wasn't impossible. Either way, this was the first good turn of events you've had in a while. You wouldn’t give it up. You speak before Folykl has a chance to respond herself.  


Marsti: Yes -_-  
Marsti: That would be good -_-  


Bronya claps her hands and a bright smile stenches across her face. What the hell? Could this girl stick to one emotion for longer than a minute.  


Bronya: Can you walk?  
Bronya: Because...  
Bronya:1. I don’t think I can carry both of you  
Bronya: 2. Your friend has voidrot and I have no psionics for her to drain.  
Marsti: Yes, I can walk -__-  
Bronya: Can your friend?  
Folykl: so long as it’s not far  
Folykl: i have voidrot i'm not missing legs  
Bronya: vV Don’t worry! It’s close! I was just worried that you were injured! vV  
Bronya: Follow me!  
___________________________________________________________________ 

You stare at the file in front of you, eyebrows in a deep crease. Your cursor was hovering over the “upload” button and fuck if you weren’t close to just hitting it and being down with the whole thing. You knew what would happen if you did. Knew the consequences. But Trizza stood to lose a hell of a lot if you did in this.  


You stare hard at the file, lost in thought. If you did this, Galekh would never talk to you again. Shit, he might even report you to the drones. You were pretty sure he wouldn’t, he'd put up with your less than legal dealings in the past, but this? Scanning every page of a book in his "might-get-culled-for-having-this” collection and then posting it? It might be enough. A dark part of your thinkpan whispered that maybe you should cut him off anyway, considering he kept all of this secret, but you knew it was wrong to blame him. He didn’t want to get culled and despite how smart he was, disseminating information anonymously was damn near impossible. Word of mouth wouldn’t do either. A blueblood saying anything cullworthy was bound to catch attention.  


You shake your head, trying to physically throw the thoughts from your head. You had to do this. Every Alternian currently alive, except for Galekh, had the bleatbeast coat pulled over their eyes. Fuck until a few hours ago, you did too. All the bullshit you had heard in the schoolfeed, all the support and words from adults and the condesce off-planet, only for it to turn out that trolls actually weren’t inherently violent, weren’t supposed to revel in suffering. All of that was learned. Cultivated. Sure, there were some aggressive tendencies, but nothing like the Empire had made, not to this extreme. Trolls weren’t supposed to love killing one another.  


You physically wince as you press the upload button and immediately close the page once you’re done. You consider blocking Galekh from contacting you now, but you can’t bring yourself to. If nothing else, he deserved to chew you out, tell you he hated you, and not in the good way either.  


Maybe after he had his go at you, you could block him. If you could bring yourself to. You find yourself glad you never asked him to actually be your matesprit, glad that you had managed to keep feelings at a distance. It finally had a use other than making you feel lonely.  


You try to stop worrying about it and close out of the file. You had other things to worry about now anyway. You wouldn’t even be able to see the consequences of what you just did until the later, so no point in worrying. What you should worry about was how the hell you were going to get extract this tealblood.  


Your program had finally found her, but unfortunately failed to find the goldblood streamer. All ou could come up with on the tealblood was a name and a bookhive they spent most of their time in. You tried using their name to hunt down a hive, find out where she lived, maybe at least get a fucking picture, but had no luck. Which meant they or someone else was covering their tracks. Covering really fucking well at that if you couldn't find anything about them through the imperial data base. If you tried, you could probably sniff out more of her details, but you were impatient. You didn’t want to contact her yourself either. The chance that you would scare her off and she would go into hiding was too high. You needed her. You couldn’t do anything to stop Trizza but redirect drones as of right now, and that wasn’t going to cut it. Everything else would take too long, be too slow. You weren’t even sure if uploading the book would drive up enough traffic before Trizza won the nearly one-sided war she was waging. You had to do something. You needed this troll to help you do that something.  


Well, if you couldn't do something, you could always pay someone else to.  


You fish your palmhusk out of your pocket and make a call. You needed someone to get in and get out as fast as possible and you knew just the troll. You let out a sharp growl when your call remains unanswered. You try calling again but fail much the same. Was she on a job? You hired her too many times to count now, usually if she saw it was you calling, she picked up.  


You feel a jolt of...what did the book call it? Anxiety? You’re pretty sure it was anxiety. Regardless, you feel it all the same as it races up your spine. Did she…  


You throw your palmhusk on your desk and navigate to the imperial cull list. She was an oliveblood, which meant that if she was culled, someone probably took notice. Something or someone had at least marked it down. You punch in her name and trace your hand down to tug at your earrings as you wait for the database to finish its search. Always took at least a few seconds to find a culled troll, the list was long after all.  


When your results pop up you accidentally yank on your earring far too hard as a wave of surprise washes over you. Fuck. She got culled. How the fuck did she get culled? She had avoided getting culled for sweeps, how did it only happen now? You try to find out more, but the entry is short, not even a picture, just a name and a notification.  


Polypa Goezee: Culled.  


You curse out loud. Loudly. Several times.  


She was one of your favorite trolls to hire, not to mention actually somewhat bearable, and now she was dead. You close your eyes and sigh. You want to feel more upset at her death, want to feel bad because she was gone, and not just because it was inconvenient for you.  


But you couldn’t  


She was an assassin, a criminal just like you. She knew the risks. Everyone did. It wasn’t like watching lowbloods get culled without reason. She had gotten caught, probably on her journey to assassinate a troll, and paid the price. Just like you would if you ever got caught.  


Still, you needed to hire another troll, someone to get your tealblood. You flick through your contact and stop at another oliveblood. You’d worked with this before too. Not on the most subtle of prospects and with all her own issues, but she would do. She had never failed you before.  


You press call  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Your hands are shoved in your hoodie as you look up at the bookhive in front of you. Your scuttlebuggy is idling behind you, ready to move off at a moment's notice. You want to feel bad about what’s happening, but you’re having a pretty hard time getting there. Not like you were culling someone. Besides, this was for their own good anyway. Sure, maybe forcibly kidnapping a troll isn’t the best look, but it’s nothing you haven't done before.  


The door bursts open to reveal the hulking oliveblood you had hired. Your eyebrows raise as you notice that she has three trolls slung over her shoulder, instead of just the one you’d asked for. Were they all a part of the rebellion? Could you even keep all three? You’re pretty sure you have enough space and resources to hide them, but this would complicate things. You think about asking her, to you know, put two _ back _ but she looked angry enough already. Best not try your luck.  


You take a harder look at the trolls and notice they were all knocked out. You saw dark bruises developing on the male trolls face and feel a jolt of empathy. Okay, you did feel bad.  
One of the tealblood women looked fine, but it was obvious that she wouldn’t be happy with her appearance when she woke up. Her meticulously groomed and styled hair, clothes, and makeup all pointed to a troll that took their aesthetics very seriously. She’d have to get over yourself. You hope that she’s not the troll named “Tyzias.” You could work with all types, but that didn’t mean you liked it.  


The final tealblood looked tired, even in her passed out state. Somehow, she was clinging tightly to a coffee mug. You hoped that one was Tyzias. The coffee cup was quirky, and any troll who managed to drag something like that out with them while being kidnapped was worth paying attention to.  


The oliveblood pauses in front of you and puffs her chest out.  


Konyyl: before i give you your stupid TROLLS  
Konyyl: i want my MONEY  
Mallek: Your payment = in your bank already;  
Mallek: we talked about this;  
Mallek: ill pay you extra now if you put them in the scuttlebuggy too;  
Konyyl: im not moving until i see PROOF  
Konyyl: not just WORDS  


The oliveblood shoots you a scathing look and refuses to move.  


Ugh. Every time you hire her, you forget how difficult she can be to work with. You only came back because somehow, she was incredibly effective at her work. Usually, you had to pay double, as some goldblood troll was usually around her, but today he was missing.  


You take another look at her catch, the size of her arms, and likely strengths, and decide to just work with her as much of possible. Truthfully, you’re not sure how was holding all the trolls without even sweating.  
You pull out your own palmhusk and pull up the transfer. You raise it up, turning the screen so it faces her. You expect some sort of noise of contentment, but she remains silent. You quickly look up and down the street and start to feel nervous. This was not a good look for anyone here.  


Konyyl: i cant see from here IDIOT  
Konyyl: how do i know youre not LYING if i cant SEE?  


Ancestors fucking save you.  


Mallek: put them in the scuttlebuggy and check your own fucking palmhusk if you dont want to look at mine  
Mallek: i dont really have a reason to lie to you my word != bullshit;  
Mallek: but if you keep standing there someone = gonna notice;  


The oliveblood huffs loudly and finally walks forward. You sigh in relief. You’re not sure you can even blame her for her distrust of ceruleanbloods. Sure, she had worked with you once or twice, but that didn't mean much when you only talked for a few minutes at most. It wasn't like your caste is known for being the most honest.  


She walks forward your press a button to pop open the door. You had a feeling that she was the type to drop what she was holding to finish her next task.  


The oliveblood tosses the trolls roughly inside and slams the door shut. She whirls around giving another glare, then reaches into her pocket and tears out her palmhusk. She quickly unlocks it, looking up at you every now and then suspiciously. You try to look casual, keeping your hands in your pockets, but personally, you’re starting to get twitchy. It’s not like she was subtle rampaging through the bookhive. All that was preventing the other teals from following her out was likely shock and awe. But, she seemed casual enough. You only hoped the attitude was born out of confidence rather than apathy.  


Konyyl: good  


She turns on her heel and walks away and you breathe a sigh of relief. That right there? That might be your favorite part of working with her. After she was done, that was it, she always left without another word. Good work and a no questions attitude is what kept you coming back, despite the difficulties of dealing with her.  


You slide into the car and start heading back to your hivestem. Time to sneak in some trolls.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Tyzias: wwwwhat the fuck!  
Tyizas: wwwwho the fuck are you?  
Stelsa: OH MY ZIZI THERE YOU ARE I HAD NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT OLVIEBLOOD CAME IN SHE RUINED ALL OF MY APARTMENTS I CANT EVEN FIND ME BOOK NOW-  
Tagora: Stelsa, shut up. *_________  
Stelsa: I KNOW YOU DID NOT JUST TELL ME TO-  
Tagora: Please Tyzias, silence your matesprit. *_________  


You swing around in your chair to take in the now awake flock of tealbloods. The one you’re pretty sure is Stelsa is giving a dirty look to the male troll. The male troll was looking was purposely ignoring the tealblood who had just been talking. Meaning the one with the coffee cup was must have been Tyzias. Nice, the troll you wanted to be in the first place. That and more information to work with. None of them had any sort of identification with them, and Konyll had neglected to collect their palmhusks for you to hack. You suppose you couldn't blame her though. Wasn't part of the job description.  


You smirk, preparing to give your standard introduction, but the male trolls sharp voice cuts you off.  
Tagora: You’re Mallek, the cobalt hacker that my loathsome kismesis keeps around, aren’t you? *_________  


Unbelievable. It is all you can do not to let your jaw fall open in shock, all of your preparation seemingly going out the window. Fuck. This is why you wanted to work with Polypa. Of all the trolls to kidnap, you had to get the fucking obnoxious tealblood Galekh was with. Tagora Lorkek or something.  


Tagora: Judging by your expression I will take that as a yes. *_________  


He glances down at his clothes and huffs wit exasperation. Did he think this was some sort of set up by Galekh or something?  


His glare moves back to you and you see his hand twitching to reach for something. More than likely, something to threaten you with. You doubt he had anything on him though. You had told Konyll to get rid of any weapons and you're fairly confident she did.  


Tyzias: okay slowwww dowwwn  


Yes. That was a good idea. It was only about halfway through the day and you had already somehow dug the hole you were in even deeper.  


Tyzias: Before you start culling eachother can wwwwe get some answwwwers for wwwwhat’s going on?  
Stelsa: ZIZI IS RIGHT WHY ARE WE HERE AND OH MY GOG WHO IS YOUR STYLIST? WHOEVER LET YOU WALK AROUND LOOKING LIKE THAT IS JUST-  


You tune her out. This was not going according to plan. This was supposed to be controlled. Organized. But everything was fucked up beyond all repair. Instead of one troll you had three, one who wouldn’t shut up, Galekh's motherfuking kismesis, and one who looked like she could really use some sleep, and sounded tired enough to pass out on your hives floor where she sat. How were you even supposed to proceed?  


You see Tyzias’s giving a once over to all of your monitors. She drags her gaze slowly across them, taking in any relevant information they had. Finally, her eyes stop moving and then widen. You look back, searching for what caught her attention, then tense. There was a live video of one of the drone's cameras you’d hacked into as it wandered slowly through a high blood section of Thrashthrust. You watch her eyes narrow and suddenly your being assaulted with two angry glares. Why the hell didn't your turn off your monitors?  


Tyzias: explain  


You lean back in your chair, trying to exude confidence, but you’re pretty sure you’re failing. This whole situation was just not going the way you had planned it to.  


Mallek: i guess ill just get straight to the point;  
Mallek: really i only wanted coffee cup over here;  
Mallek: but i didnt get that so whatever; so you can all listen for all i care;  
Mallek: coffee cup here has been writing some pretty damn cullworthy stuff and i liked it  
Mallek: wanted to keep it quiet so i dragged you to ask you if uh;  
Mallek: you knew anyone else whos doing that;? you know like an organization or something;?  


You try to continue your half-baked explanation, but Stelsa picks her screaming right back up and you're promptly shut down.  


Stelsa: YOU KIDNAPPED MY ZIZI TO ACCUSE HER OF BEING A REBEL????? IVE NEVER HEARD SOMETHING SO RIDICULOUS IN MY LIFE YOU SHOULD BE CULLED FOR EVEN TALKING ABOUT THAT  


Tyizas cringes hard.  


Ouch. Wow. Were you about to destroy their quadrant? Damn, not only were you fucking up your own relationships, you were fucking up everyone else's too.  


Shit, were you an asshole?  


Tagora looks awkwardly up and way, pointedly not looking at anyone else in the room. Okay. Well, at least he was probably in on it too. Maybe this would work out? Seems like you got a two for one deal going on. Assuming they stuck around of course.  


Tyzias: can wwwwe just leave?  
Tyzias: i really don’t wwwwant to fight  


She sounds so tired, and by the way Stelsa was looking at her, you could tell that she had a hard night ahead. You didn’t want to fight either and from the way Stelsa was looking, you weren't sure you could win if it came to that. It was time to cut your losses. This plan was fucked up the moment you called Konyll.  


Mallek: i;  
Mallek: uh yeah;  
Mallek: just dont go back to that bookhive tonight;  
Mallek: i dont want to get culled and im pretty fucking nobody else here does either; Going back there tonight seems like a pretty good way for that shit to happen;  


An intensely uncomfortable silence ensues, and for a second, you worry that maybe they are actually big on culling, but only if the target is you. Nothing you could do now. You took the gamble. You'd face the consequences. You nearly flinch as the move, readying yourself to fight, but they all just slowly stand up. They brush their bodies off, then move to leave your respiteblock, all without a single word or glance tossed back at you.  


Tagora, bringing up the rear, pauses at the exit, letting the other trolls get ahead of him. He then turns and fixes you with another icy look.  


Tagora: If I could stick you in front of His Honorable Tyranny I would.*_________  
Tagora: Instead, Galekh will have to do.*_________  


He turns and leaves, following the other two teals who were no doubt heading for the elevator. At least they knew how a hivestem worked. As soon as they leave, your burrow your head in your hands. Would he actually tell Galekh? Wouldn't that out him as a rebel? Or...no. He could just lie or not tell the whole truth. Not like you could defend yourself without outing yourself as a part of it yourself either. Fucking legislacerators always pinning trolls down.  
Mallek: godfucking bulgemunching _ dammit _; 

Well, if things with Galekh weren't fucked before they definitely were now. How did everything go so wrong?  


You’re not sure how long you spent sitting, merely ruminating over the tragically short interaction and the absolute failure of it all. You needed a new plan. You still needed an in and those trolls were still your best bet.  


Slowly the name of Tyzias’s matesprit rises to the forefront of your pan.  


Mallek: stelsa huh;?  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

Bronya made good on her word, and you find yourself starting to take a liking to the troll. She patched you up quickly and effectively, the medical tech that she had access to taking away much of the obvious injuries, but none of the soreness. You guess you can't complain. After you'd came to, she told old you as much. She even gave Folykl a once over, despite the goldbloods bitter complaining. As soon as the Jade was done, you stepped forward and give your hand to Folykl. You tug her off the table and the two of you sit on the floor, leaning against the wall. After your situated, you turn your attention back to the jadeblood.  


The part you think about you liked about her, maybe the part you liked about all the jades if they were in on it, was a large nursery you spotted on your way to the (medicalblock). You caught sight of wrigglers, all obviously mutated, injured, or otherwise incapable of staying in the caverns without dying.  


And she was taking care of them.  


You want to bring it up, want to say something to her about it, but when she was patching you and Folkyl up was hardly the time, Maybe there never would be a good time to bring it up. It was possible she didn’t want anyone to know. You didn’t know much about jadeblood caste rules, but you were pretty sure that wrigglers who died before pupating were just considered weak. The fact that she wasn’t letting them die meant she was breaking rules. Cullable rules. And pointing that out might not be the best idea. Still, she helped you, lowbloods obviously fleeing from culling yourselves, so maybe she was more sympathetic. You think. You hope. You remember her saying something about a goldbloods hive. A place that apparently, other lowbloods like you and Folykl were going to.  


You wait until she is done cleaning up the room that she had just taken care of you and Folykl in. Wait until she has wheeled around to face the two of you, a broad smile plastered on her face. She opens her mouth to speak, probably to say something disgustingly enthusiastic, but you know if you don’t speak now you’ll never be able to gather up the courage again.  


Marsti: Can you tell us how to get to that hive -_-  
Marsti: You know, the goldblood one? It sounds like it might be safe there -_-  


The enthusiasm drains from her face instantly and is replaced with an expression of worry and fear, the same as last time.  


Bronya: Shhhh!  
Bronya: Do not talk so loud about that here!  
Bronya: 1. Trizza has started sending her own guards to pop into the Cavern.  
Bronya: 2. I don’t know if all my Jades are on board with me helping lowbloods.  
Folykl: that’s great but i don't give a fuck if your jades are casteist bitches  
Folykl: if you’re not going to help us than at least tell us how to get the fuck out of these caverns and as far from outglut as possible maybe to that hive marsti is talking about  


You give Folykl and absolutely seething look, even though you’re pretty sure she can’t see your face. Somehow, whether by luck or by some other mechanism, she gets the message and shuts up.  


Marsti: We just want to leave, can you just show us the exit? -_-  


As much as you wanted to stay, to get more information, at least you had an idea of where to start looking now. You could talk to other lowbloods, refugees like you and Folykl. If a jade somehow knew the location of a safe-house than another lowblood was bound to know.  


Bronya: I-  


The vibration of a palmhusk sends a wave of silence over the room. Both you and Marsti turn to look at her. She was the only one with one.  


Bronya quickly answer her voice back to the happy tone it was before. You were nearly getting whiplash with how fast it seemed like she could swap between the two.  


Bronya: Yes Lynera? What's the matter?  


You can hear someone talking, but can’t make out a lick of what they’re saying. You send a sidelong glance to Folykl, trying to read her body language and see if she could follow the conversation at all. She seemed just as much in the dark as you were.  


Bronya: No but, i can-  
Bronya: Wait  
Bronya: What  
Bronya: Repeat that.  


Bronya looks away from you and Folykl and a look of concentration passes over her face and you can feel the tension inside of your own body begin to grow. Whoever she was talking to was obviously not telling her anything you wanted to hear. You hope that’s it’s a just a dispute between quadrantmates or something equally as petty, but judging from the Bronya’s personality, you were sure you wouldn’t get that lucky. She didn’t seem like the type to drop what she was doing just to endure some meddling.  


Her expression grows darker the longer she listens, and her gaze flits back to you, then to Folykl.  


Bronya: Okay.  


She ends the call.  


Folykl: so you gonna show us the fuck out or not?  
Folykl: i don’t give a shit about what that call was about we just want to fucking leave  


You stay silent, tacitly supporting Folykl’s remarks. Whatever was going on, you really didn't want a part in it. Bryona however, ignores both of you  


Bronya: You have three choices.  


Bronya looks most nervous yet, but there was an underlying hardness in her voice.  


Bronya: 1 You can try to find somewhere in the caverns.  
Bronya: 2. You can try to run  
Bronya: 3. You can fight.  
Marsti: What????? -________________________-  
Marsti: You have got to be fucking kidding me? -_-  
Marsti: Why can’t we just hide? We just got here! -__-  
Bronya: You can't hide, both of you run too hot and scanners will pick you up. There is nowhere safe to hide. Trizza has guessed that trolls are using our caverns to escape. She's sent her highbloods to check.  
Bronya: But, if they come, they're just going to further disturb the drones and lusii.  
Bronya: And…  
Bronya: I have my nursery. If they find it...I...  
Bronya: They'll cull me. Then they'll cull all my wrigglers, all my grubs. Bronya: Which cannot happen. I have to look after the mothergrub, my jades, my grubs. I need to keep everyone _ safe _  


You're not sure how to even begin to respond. You look to Folykl for help, and relax a little. It looks like she had it covered.  
Folykl: we’ll do a fighting retreat  
Folykl: we can’t defend your janky caves but we’ll help before we run  


The words come out of your mouth before you can even stop them.  


Marsti: What???? -______-  


Folykl continues as if you hadn’t even interrupted her.  


Folykl: i saw where you were keeping those wrigglers  
Folykl: some of them have fucking voidrot don’t they?  


Bronya nods.  


Folykl: then we’ll fight  
Folykl: i fucking hate highbloods  
Folykl: it’ll be no different than pranking them with kuprum  


You want to point out that fighting and trying to kill highbloods was distinctly different from just pranks, but then you realize that the type of “pranks” she had been playing with Kuprum were likely less on the legal side and far more on the cullable one. This wasn’t her first fight you'd guess. Technically, it wouldn't be yours either, but when you had to fight with highbloods, you were always reactive, defensive, only attempting to not get culled. It didn’t seem like Folykl shared the mindset.  


Bronya: Good.  
Bronya: Actually...  


Bronya’s fangs sink into her lips and you can tell that she is thinking hard about something. She glances at the two of you.  


Bronya: Okay.  
Bronya: My Jades will stand with you, they don't need to know who you are. Even if they wouldn't they will stand with me!  
Bronya: I will get one to guide you out, the quickest way will be through the highbloods though. That’s where the fighting part comes in.  
Bronya: After this is over, I will tell them we are standing with the lowbloods. The mothergurb cannot help but produce the slurry, we would all be worse off for because of Trizza. This...this has to stop. Before it gets out of hand.  


You hadn’t expected a change of heart like that. You also neglect to comment that it had already gotten out of hand.  


Bronya: I will call my other Jade’s the ones who will help us!  
Bronya: Get ready.  


Bronya fires off a quick series of texts and heads out of the room, pausing at the exit. She cranes her next to look behind her and fixes you both with a stare you’re pretty sure she reserved for trolls guilty of trying to kill the mothergrub.  


Bronya: Stay here.  
Bronya: 1. I will be right back.  
Bronya: 2. If you leave you’re going to get lost again.  


She leaves.  


Folykl: don’t worry  
Folykl: all you have to do is get me close  


She says it as if it makes perfect sense, and to her it probably did. You reach up and snap your goggles back over your eyes. You don't care that you'd probably have to remove them soon anyway.  


Marsti: I don’t think it’s going to be that simple -_-  
Marsti: Unless we’re only running into one troll at at a time, just sucking one dry isn't going to be enough -_-  
Marsti: I don’t see why we couldn’t have just ran -__-  


Folykl shrugs.  


Folykl: cause fuck highbloods  
Marsti: I don’t even have any weapons! What am I supposed to do??? -________-  
Folykl: just shank a bitch  
Folykl: i’m sure bronya or her bulgebuddy has a knife you can use  


She says it so casually, but you don’t attempt to contradict her. What were you going to say?  


Marsti: Great advice, glad we had this talk -_-  
Folykl: no problem  


You know Folykl can hear the sarcasm in your voice, but she leaves it at that. Precious minutes tick away and a sense of paranoia beings crawling over your skin. What if Bronya wasn’t going to help you? What if she was going to gather her jade’s and then sell you out? Everything was moving too fast. Bronya and Folykl were taking to this so easily. Were you the only troll who tried to avoid violence?  
Lynera: -!!! get the FUCK ready girls!!!  
Lynera: -!!!it’s CULLING time!!! bronya is on the line!  


Holy shit. You were going to fucking die. You had escaped from drones only to get killed by some crazy jadeblood motherfucker with a knife and a pair of glasses. How the fuck could someone with a jade colored vest on top of a white shirt and a long skirt look like one of most Alternia’s most famous serial killers?  


Bronya bursts into the room following the other trolls chaotic entry. The steely look in her eyes is back, though you can tell by the tension in her body that she wasn’t totally confident.  


Folykl: she needs a knife  


The crazy jade shoots a grin your way and crouches down, before fishing one out of seemingly nowhere. She hands it to you, handle first, shooting you a wicked grin.  


Lynera: -i’m lynera. all i ask is for you to take of that knife and fight whoever is trying to hurt bronya  
Lynera: -you don’t even have to give it back  


She leans in closer, her forehead nearly touching yours, when a sharp growl from Folykl makes her stop.  


Folykl: back the fuck up 

Lynera grunts again, then raises to her feet. You squeeze Folykl’s hand and stand up yourself, tugging Folykl with you. She climbs onto your back and the four of you look at each other, a moment of awkward silence keeping everyone in place. Bronya breaks it.  


Bronya: 1. Listen to Lynera, she is your guide out of here.  
Bronya: 2. If you see a highblood, attack. Trizza only has suspcions of what’s going on now. Imperial drones kill lususii and trolls who wonder in here all the time, so it’ll buy us some time.  
Bronya: 3. Don’t die.  


You snort at the last line. She turns and gives a meaningful look at Lynera.  


Bronya: Thank you.  


She gives her a final soft smile, before turning and once again exiting the room.  


Lynera: -!!!alright let’s GO!!!  


Lynera leaves as well, but turns left instead of right.  


You follow, bringing Folykl with you.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1: You always do this.   
2: You have never asked for information that wasn’t.   
3: I do not have to say it I’m sure. It is the same as always.   
4: You didn’t clean up either.   
5: Almost word for word at that.   
6: By around 15 minutes.   
7: You can even still hack the door, just knock.   
8: You are purposely trying to annoy me.   
9: I will admit I do like to hear you say it.   
10: You look very frazzled.   
11: You are rather attractive   
12: Believe it or not, I do not know everything, I require additional context.   
13: I have told you about them before and even retrieved knowledge for you from them.   
14: Page 85.   
15: Page 89.   
16: Hacking drones and whatever else you do that you do not inform me of is cullable.   
17: The hemospectrum is very much in my favor, I have a surprising amount of flexibility on what is cullable in my case.   
18: Do not walk away or interrupt like you do the other times because you think I'm being boring.   



	4. Teals and Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update! I've been more productive than usual this week, so ya'll get this a day early.  
Getting Diemen's text to highlight yellow when he's talking about his meat is wayyy harder than it should be. I'll go back and reformat it, but for now I'm not worried about it. Everything else should be formatted correctly. As always, I don't have a beta, so let me know if there are any mistakes!  
To find Galekh's citations, merely CNTRL+F and type in the number, they're in the endnotes.

Chahut: alrighT all you moTherfuckers shuT up and moTherfuckin lisTen  
Chahut: Trizza has decided That our warning wasnT good enough  
Chahut: in facT she started culling our brother and sisTers  
Chahut: are we going To Take That bullshiT???  
Crowd: MOTHERFUCKING NO  
Chahut: Thats fucking righT  
Chahut: miss fucking empress got too big for her boots  
Chahut: all up and Trying To be the condesce  
Chahut: Trying to cull our moTherfucking casTe!  
Chahut: Trying To kill The spread of The goodword!  
Chahut: so whaT the fuck are we going To do abouT that?  
Crowd: CULL!  
Chahut: and who The moTherfuck are we going To cull?  
Crowd: TRIZZA  
Crowd: GUTTERBLOODS  
Crowds: SEADWELLERS  
Chahut: ThatT’s moTherfucking righT!  
Chahut: iT’s Time for us To fix The hemospecTrum  
Chahut: Time to make sure everyone Troll hears the good word  
Chahut: puT the True royalTy back on Top  
Chahut: cull any Trizza supporter  
Chahut: any fishfuck  
Chahut: anyone who doesnT accept the goodword  
Chahut: anyThing wiTh Trizza on it gets destroyed  
Chahut: any posTer and shop  
Chahut: moTherfucking everything  
Chahut: the grand highblood is gone and we have To honor his moTherfucking legacy   
Chahut: be The best subjuggulaTors this sorry excuse for a planeT has ever seen!  
Chahut: before The sun rises spread our moTherfucking message as far and wide as you can  
Chahut: are you moTherfuckers wiTh me!?!  
Crowd: MOTHERFUCKING YES  
_____________________________________________________________________

You set your programs up to track down everything you can about Stelsa and after giving it another moment's thought, Tagora as well. Your search for the mustard blood streamer was still going, and at this point, you weren’t sure if it would ever finish. But you didn’t plan to stop it now.  


You consider working more, checking on more programs, maybe even seeing if there were any updates, but truthfully, you needed to unplug. Too much hacking, too much typing, too much scheming in the last two nights. More than you usually got done in a sweep. And for what? To sit alone in your respiteblock? Have your only hope walk out your door? To destroy the only quadrant you had even managed to start? No, you needed a fucking _ break _  


You get out of your trains and head to your elevator, grabbing a pair of headphones as you leave.  


You were going to sit in your favorite spot in the sewer, ignore the world for the rest of the night, and only come back up when you plan on heading right to your recuperacoon.  


Just as about to enter the elevator, you feel your palmhusk go off in your pocket. You pull it out, sparing it a glance, and roll your eyes at what you see. Just a chittr notification. Nothing interesting, nothing even worth looking at.  


You consider just leaving your palmhusk on the floor or going to throw it one of your lonugeplanks, but you’re not sure you can. You can’t even think of the last time you hadn’t had it with you, and its familiar weight in your hands and pockets seemed like a part of you now.  
Instead, you merely set it to ignore all notifications, slip your headphones in your ears, and start playing music. You enter the elevator and head down, breathing a sigh of relief as you descend.  


Time to relax  
________________________________________________________________ 

Your jerk awake, swinging your fist wildly at the thing that was jostling your body. Your fist connects with something and you follow through, intent on getting what it was that was touching you to stop. You hear a grunt of pain as something hits the ground and you jump to your feet, adrenaline coursing through your veins, searching for your attacker.  


Diemen: (| ow |)  
Diemen: (| why are you hitting me? i just wanted to wake you up |)  


Diemen? What the hell? You look at him curiously, wondering how the hell he had even made his way to you. Had he started living in the sewers or something? You knew that he ducked down here sometimes, but you knew that where you were was _ far _ out of the way.  


Mallek: shit im sorry;  
Mallek: instinct you know how it =;  
Diemen: (| its okay |)  
Diemen: (| why are you sleeping in the sewer? you have a hive |)  
Mallek: i like it here its chill;  
Mallek: better question; how the hell did you get here;?  
Diemen: (| oh i just swam |)  
Diemen: (| had to go into the sewers again the clowns are going crazy out there |)  


You feel your confusion beginning to contort itself into worry. You really, _ really _ hoped he didn’t mean what you’re pretty sure he did.  


Mallek: crazy how;?  
Diemen: (| i guess they wanted a turn culling lowbloods? I dont know but theyre destroying a bunch of stuff with trizza on it and i saw a few midbloods dying too |)  
Diemen: (|i even lost my oblong meat product |)  


You want to shake the short rustblood in front of you for more information, shit you want to shake him for being so damn casual about all of this, but you know it’s absolutely pointless. The rusty wasn’t phased by anything short of something coming to cull him right there. The most cheerful nihilist you’d ever seen. You decide to take a different approach.  


Mallek: if you tell me everything you know you can come with me to my hive; ill give you all my oblong meat objects;  


Diemen’s eyes light up and a lazy grin stretches over his face. Apparently wandering through the sewers and almost dying barely put a dent in his spirits.  


The two of you walk to the elevator and his words begin spilling out nearly faster than you can take in. From what you can make out, it looked like the purplebloods were doing far more than just making fun of Trizza. In fact, from what Diemen was saying, it seemed like they had effectively declared war. You’re itching to get to your computer, to check surveillance footage and find out what’s going on.  


Diemen continues to prattle on as you ride the elevator upwards, but he was far beyond the topic he had started with. You opt to just tune him out. Telling him you were done listening would get you nowhere fast, and if you’re being honest, you like the plucky bastard. He was easily the most tenacious rustblood, hell the most tenacious troll, that you had ever run across.  


The elevator opens into your hive, and before you can even take a step out a familiar screeching voice fills your entire hive.  


Stelsa: YOU FUCKING BASTARD YOU DRAGGED US HERE AND NOW WE CANT EVEN GET BACK TO OUR HIVES  
Stelsa: THE PURPLEBOODS ARE CULLING EVERYONE PRICK WE DONT EVEN HAVE OUR PALMHUSKS TO CHECK WHATS GOING ON YOU TRAPPED US IN THIS HIVESTEM YOU MOTHER-  


You blink in surprise. In front of you are the three tealbloods you had kidnapped earlier, except this time, their faces were twisted in outrage. Even Tyzias, who you weren’t even sure could look anything but tired, looked about ready to cull you herself. You see Diemen scurry out of the elevator and turn to look back and forth between you and the pack of teals, his face dancing with bewilderment.  


Mallek: STOP;!  
Mallek: please stop; i have no idea whats going either;  
Tyzias: its you fault wwwwhere here  
Tagora: give me a palmhusk  
Diemen: (| can i have my meat |)  
Stelsa: -GRUBBING BULGEMUNCH  


Apparently yelling wasn’t going to work, you take a different route. First, you give Diemen a long look and point at your hungertrunk. He seems to get the message immediately, and scurries off to it, likely planning on eating whatever was in there that he could.  


You turn back to look at the teals and take a breath.  


Mallek: go get one in my respiteblock i have a bunch in the drawer beneath my desk;  


Stelsa keeps shouting, either entirely ignoring what you were saying or being unable to hear it. Tagora gets the message though, and he makes his way up your stairs. 

Two down.  


The longer Stelsa went on, the more you were pretty sure you would just have to wait her out and if Stelsa was yelling you doubt you could talk to Tyzias with her still going off.  


You elect to just stand still and shake your hands in your pockets as you look back and forth between the two teals. Tyzias didn’t look like she planned on stopping her matesprit soon and Diemen was apparently done digging for food and was chowing down, paying no mind to the enraged troll.  


Tagora comes back down the stairs and your eyes try to meet his, looking for a bailout, but he’s buried is palmhsuk and doesn’t spare you a second glance. He goes over and whispers something to Tyzias, but her expression betraying nothing, even as she turns to answer.  
Mallek: arent you safer here;?  


You aren’t sure where the words are coming from, but you just needed to make Stelsa _ stop._ You would just try talking again.  


Stelsa pauses for a brief moment, but Tyzias steps forward and puts a hand on her shoulder, leaning over to whisper something to as well. Stelsa goes silent as she listens, and slowly her expression melts into one of confusion, and then one of anguish. Her head starts whipping back and forth between you and Tyzias, who had taken a step back and was gazing down at the floor, unwilling to meet her eyes.  


Tagora turns to look at you, then speaks.  


Tagora: You were tracking Stelsa up there, I saw it.  
Tagora: Why is she on the cull list? What the fuck do you know?  
Mallek: i already told you everything;  
Mallek: i can find out if i go look;  
Tyzias: howwww do wwwwe knowwww that it wwwwasn’t you wwwwho sold us out?  
Mallek: i-;  
Mallek: are you serious?  
Mallek: i might be midcaste but you are too; its not like what i do isnt cullable; im not highblood;  
Mallek: i kidnapped you and asked you to join a rebellion; if i was a trizza finlicker i wouldve just culled you;  
Stelsa: GO LOOK  
Stelsa: CHECK ZIZI AND-  


She glances at Tagora and you see her head move in an almost imperceptible nod.  


Stelsa: AND TAGORA  


The mood in the room had changed from anger directed at you to an almost suffocating feeling of unease. You felt your chest tighten in an all to familiar way and take a deep breath. At least no one was yelling at you. 

God, was it your fault that they were on the list? Did one of the teals report them when you kidnapped them? Shit did they think they were in on it?  


You look up three names on the imperial database, then take a closer look at Stelsa entry on it. You force the database to supply you with more information, and you eagerly absorb it all.  


Name: Stelsa Sezyat  
Caste: Tealblood  
Residence: Thrashthrust  
Age: 9 Sweeps  
Cull status: Cull-on-sight  
Reason: Member of the rebellion  


Not helpful, nothing you didn’t know.  


You filter your search, trying to find reports with Stelsa’s name attached. The database lags for a few brief moments but spits out what you want. You hover over the report and open it, feeling a sense of relief that you finally found what you needed.  


You speed-read through it, more concerned with the why rather than details like who was the reporting officer.  


Stelsa was declared an enemy of the Empire by Trizza herself. She, along with every teablood who worked in her bookhive was culled today in the name of the Empire. However, the report stated that Stelsa, along with two other members of her caste, escaped and were to be put on the cull-on-sight list.  


You click on the link to both Tagora’s and Tyzia’s name, finding nearly a word for word reproduction of Stelsa’s report, with only the names swapped out.  


Tyzias: wwwwhat’s the verdict then?  


You flinch at the sudden noise of Tyiza’s voice behind you, and you whirl around to find that the three teals had somehow navigated upstairs without you even hearing them. They were feasting their ganderbulbs on the reports you had pulled up, but you were almost positive the text was too small for them to read.  


You consider gesturing them over, to let them read the reports themselves, but the thought of another troll, let alone three, touching your computer did not put you at ease. You would just tell them. You could maybe even leverage this. Your kidnapping inadvertently saved their lives.  


Mallek: trizza declared you three cull-on-sight because you werent there when she culled everyone in the bookhive;  
Mallek: youve all been labeled as rebels;  


Stelsa looked puzzled, as if what you were saying meant little sense to her. Tyzias and Tagora seemed to be taking it in stride, but you can see the tenseness in their bodies, could feel the fear almost radiating off of them. 

You wondered if you looked the same.  


Stelsa: WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?  
Stelsa: ARE WE STUCK IN YOUR HIVE FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES?  


Your first instinct is to tell her no, but the longer you think about it, the less confident you feel in that answer. They couldn’t go back to their hives, shit you didn’t even know if their hives were still _ there _ If the drones went hunting, then that is the first place they would have checked and destroyed.  


You needed another answer, and it suddenly hits you. An idea. A spark of hope. _ Something _  


Mallek: there is a place where a bunch of lowbloods went to;  
Mallek: some hive out in the middle of nowhere;  
Tyzias: and howwww exactly to you knowwww that’s true?  
Mallek: i dont know where it is;  
Mallek: but a streamer i like; their name is cirava; they are there;  
Mallek: and i dont think they'd be streaming if it wasnt safe  
Mallek: there is something there  
Stelsa: YOUR BASING THIS ALL OFF GUEST WORK?  
Stelsa: YOUR BUSINESS MANAGEMENT SKILLS ARE TERRIBLE HOW DID YOU EVER EVEN MAKE IT THIS FAR WITH THAT ATTITUDE YOU DO THIS FOR EVERYTHING? IS THAT WHY YOU KIDNAPPED ALL OF US?  
Mallek: if you have a better idea im waiting;  
Mallek: if i didnt kidnap you; you all would have gotten culled;  
Tyzais: pardon mmmme for not thanking you for kidnapping us  
Tyizas: mmmmy bad  
Tyzias: i obviously need sommmmeone else to run mmmmy life  
Tagora: I’m not running anywhere.  
Tyzias: no offense sore gore but do you seriously plan to hold up in your kismmmmesis’s hive for the rest of your life?  
Stelsa: IT’D BE BETTER THAN HERE.  


They begin to argue with one another, and you let out a sigh of relief. You reach into your pocket for your own palmhusk. You stand for a few seconds, trying to decide if you should just stand their and look at it until they were done or whether or not you should just leave and let them work it out alone.  
You linger for one more minute, and when they give no signs of stopping, you start to make your You make sure to lock your computer before you go, and as you are sliding out of the room, Tyzias gives you a long look. She doesn’t say anything though. Not like there wasn’t much to say at this point. It wasn’t like any of you were leaving this hive soon.  
You walk down the stairs, nose buried in your palmhusk. At the final step, your eyes flick up, and you see Diemen sitting at your table, a small pile of all the meat you head in your hungertrunk in front of him. You pinch the bridge of your nose and hiss is frustration. You had forgotten the rustblood was still here.  


Diemen: (| can i take the rest of your meaty delicacies before i leave? |)  


Mallek: you cant leave until you tell me what you were supposed to in the first place;  
Mallek: i need to everything you know about the purplebloods;  
Mallek: also;  
Mallek: do you know about any hive where lowbloods are running to;?  


It’s a shot in the dark, and you doubted anything productive was going to come from this, but Diemen got around. This rustblood appeared almost immortal to you if his stories were too be believed. Personally, you found it hard to doubt him after you had personally witnessed and even been involved in a few.  


Diemen:(| i already told you everything i know about the clowns |)  
Diemen: (| but that hive i think i know |)  
Diemen (| do you mean zebede’s hive? |)  
Diemen: (| cause if it’s zebede’s then yeah i know about it almost all the lowbloods do |)  


You pause at the bottom of the stairs and do your best to stop your jaw from dropping. You couldn’t believe it. Of all the trolls who knew information your computers couldn’t find after _ two days, _ it was fucking Diemen.  


Mallek: you know where it is;?  
Diemen: (| yeah, of course, I don’t want to go if you’re about to me to go there though |)  
Mallek: you can do whatever you want;  
Mallek: can you tell me;  
Diemen: (| can i have this meat |)  
Mallek: if you tell me ill give you an entire hungertrunk full;  


Diemen’s eyes light up and before he can start rambling, you start recording.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

Lynera moves quickly through the various tunnels, cutting down passages ways with a confidence you didn’t even have when you used to navigate Outglut. You’re barely keeping pace, the weight of Lynera on your back forcing you to be a few steps behind.  


Lynera looks back every now and then, and you realize that she is subtly adjusting her pace to make sure she doesn’t leave you behind. You suppose you’re somewhat thankful for that, as the last thing you wanted to do was get lost in the caverns again to deal with highbloods and drones.  


Lynera wasn't the scariest nor craziest troll you’d ever run into and it seemed like she was more than on your side. She might not be perfect, but you’ll take what you can get.  


You notice the tunnels getting narrower until there is only enough space for two trolls to stand shoulder to shoulder. There's still plenty of light illuminating the passage and you hope that means you’re on a well-traveled path. The last thing you wanted to do was to fight in the dark.  


Lynera abruptly pauses, then turns her head to look at you bringing a frond to her lip. You pause right behind her, and notice Folykl sliding off of your back. You can still feel her mostly pressed against you, but you stand up a bit straighter at the loss of weight and strain to hear the reason Lynera stopped.  


Lynera whirls her head back around, taking a quick glance around the corner before quickly jerking back. All her actions were tight and economical. You wonder if she has experience hunting and ambushing trolls.  


You go quiet, even holding your breath as you wait to get some sort of inkling of what she heard. A few seconds pass with a tense silence, but then you catch it; the sound of feet treading the ground and unsubdued conversation. You can tell it’s growing closer, and you feel Folykl take a step back, leaving only her hand attached to you.  


You watch Lynera’s grip tighten around her knife and look at her, praying she’d turn around and offer some sort of guidance.  


As if sensing your question, Lynera turns around and fixes both you and Folykl with another one of her crazed look. She raises her knife slightly in front of her throat, then draws it across, throwing her head in the direction of the voices. She swaps it into a reverse grip and raises her eyebrows. Were you supposed to respond or something?  


You start to take a step forward, but Lynera shakes her head. Okay, ambush it is then. You nod your head and she seems satisfied with the responded, turning her head back around as she waits.<.br> 

The sound of the approaching trolls grows louder and you’re able to pick out four distinct voices. A burst of terror rushes through your veins, but you force yourself to breathe. Panicking here would only ensure your death. You didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to do this, but it was either you or them.  


You watch as Lynera’s body grows tenser, and you can pick up on the individual sounds of their feet striking the rock. A high pitched voice cackles at a comment from one significantly lower, and you can tell that they are just around the corner, probably about to turn and run straight into you. You swallow your panic down and get ready to leap into action.  


Folykl takes another step back, disconnecting herself entirely. You see her crouching down only a few inches behind, all of her muscles coiled and ready to spring.  


You see a leg appear from behind the corner and Lynerasis springing into action, stabbing around the corner. A sharp cry of pain breaks the quiet around you and Lynera yanks her knife out and back from the leg.  


You can see a sheen of tealblood covering Lynera’s blade and you see a thin-looking tealblood collapse, the top her body coming into view, a massive gash in her throat. A torrent of blood covers the stone and Lynera lets out a cry of pure fury.  
: 

A massive blueblood comes into view, his eyes widening as he catches sight of your ragtime group lying in wait. He hefts his club and the most intense burst of raw terror you've ever felt has you rushing forward and lunging to sink your knife into him.  


He sees you coming, but it’s too late, you’re too small, too quick, and too hopped up on adrenaline for his slow motions to match yours. You thrust your own knife deep into his gut, dragging it to the right out and with all your strength. You can feel it cut deeply into his flesh and his roar of pain fills your ears.  


You try to jump back, but your a moment too late to avoid the bluebloods fist from colliding with your face. You stagger back, stunned and nearly drop your knife due to the force of the blow. You sense the all too familiar feeling of blood dripping down your face, but you refuse to fall and let the blueblood bring his club down to crush you.  


You look up in time to see Lynera knife sinking into the bluebloods neck. She tries to pull it out, but the blueblood wraps a hand around her neck, then slams her against the wall, his other hand dropping his club to reduce the blood gushing from it.  


Another legislacerator comes into view, squeezing herself past the dying blueblood and into the passage you stood in. Before you can move to engage, Folykl dashes forth, moving faster than you’d ever seen her move before. She tackles the tealblood to the floor, and you watch a look of shock come over her face as she feels Folykl’s draining picks up in full force.  


The blueblood is somehow still standing, and Lynera is still choking against the wall, her hands clawing at the hand around her throat. You step forward, stopping just behind the prone forms of Folykl and her victim, then bring your knife down and cutting into the arm the blueblood pinned Lynera with. He drops her, his hand yanking back into his chest as more blueblood  


He opens his mouth in a silent cry and his head snaps in your direction. You bring your knife up to defend yourself, but the blueblood ignores the threat and runs forward, letting the knife sink into his stomach once again as he tackles you, slamming your skull into the ground for the second time today.  


His hand falls flat on your face and his fronds dig into your skull as he lifts forces your head up and off the ground. One again, he slams into the hard stone, pressing you as hard into the earth as he can. You see stars and desperately drag your knife through his body. You don’t think you can stand another blow to your head.  


The blueblood’s grip on your face weakens and his body begins to go limp on top of you. You roll him off of you as you try to figure out the situation. You knew there was one more troll. Your vision clears enough and you Folykl, still laying on top of the troll she had tackled, immobilized by what you hope was a shallow cut on her upper leg.  


Lynera is tussling with a ceruleanblood, but it looks like she was winning. The ceruleanblood had a slash across her face, blinding her in one eye. She held a short scimitar and was swinging it in a rage, but Lynera somehow flawlessly dodged every strike.  


The cobalt makes another swing and Lynera once again dodges, but this time closes the difference. Her knife cuts across the Cobalt’s face again, blinding her completely. Lynera savagely punches her in the throat, and finally brings her knife to stab into the cobalt’s eyes.  


You watch the cobalt drop the ground dead.  


You look down at yourself and feel bile rising in your throat, too fast for you to stop it. You’re soaked in blue blood, your clothes absolutely ruined. Your face fares no better, and no matter where you look there was more.  


It hits you what you just did. What you _ all _ just did. You killed highbloods. Fucking highbloods. You look at the blueblood next to you, his eyes bulged out and your knife still sticking out of his stomach.  


You sit up, lean to the side, and vomit.  


Folykl: marsti !  


A distant voice calls out to you, but you’re too busy emptying your stomach onto the ground to know who it was. The pain in your head that had just faded earlier was back with a vengeance and worse than ever. The more you vomited, the dizzier you got, the more your head spun and your world swayed. The highblood smacked your head hard. You hope you don’t die.  


Dying in a puddle of blood and vomit would not be your finest moment.  


You stop vomiting and someone slides in behind you wraps themselves around you. They’re cooler than you and as soon as they touch you, a soothing feeling starts up. Like the pain is being pulled from you, drained away to somewhere else.  


You try to relax and settle back into the embrace, letting your head loll back and rest on the troll's shoulder, closing your eyes.  


Your head gradually clears more and more and the world stops tilting. The panic swelling in your chest receding until you felt boneless and all that remained was a pounding in your skull.  


Folykl: you’re okay  
Folykl: we’re okay  


Oh. It was Folykl. She was holding you, keeping you steady. The fight was over. You were done. _ Fuck _ you hate fighting.  
Marsti: Thank you  
Marsti: Lynera, are you okay? -_-  


Lynera is bent over, plucking a palmhusk out of the pocket of the slain cerulean. Her eyes flick back to you and she nods. She didn't seem phased by the fighting in the slightest.  


Lynera: -we should head back  
Lynera: -we need to make sure bronya is okay!  
Lynera: -and we need to find out what to do next  


Next. There was next. Of course, there was. Why would even pretend that there wouldn’t be?  
Marsti: Folykl, can you walk? -_-  
Folykl: i can try  
Folykl: it was fucking hard to even get here  


You take a deep breath and steady yourself. You could do this. All you had was a headache. Your leg wasn’t cut open.  


Marsti: Hang on -_-  
Marsti: I can carry you -_-  


Folykl tightens her grip around you and you slowly rise up. All you had to do was make it back to the medicalblock. Get a chance for you or Bronya to look at your head and make sure your thinkpan wasn’t destroyed.  


Folykl: what are we doing with them?  
Lynera: -we just leave them here for now!  
Lynera: -more important things to worry about!  
Lynera: -come on!!!  


She squeezes past you and as you follow, you realize that you were dealing with either the craziest or the most ruthless troll you’ve ever met. One who, to the best of your knowledge, had some weird obsession with her leader.  


You limp after her, trying to mentally mark every bump and bruise you’ve accumulated over the past few days. You already felt like garbage after sleeping without sopor and nothing you’ve been through recently was making you feel that different.  


Your backtracking takes nearly three times along as leaving did, and with every step, Folykl seems to grow heavier and your muscles protest more. At several points, you thought Lynera was simply going to leave you behind. She kept casting impatient looks and muttered words to hurry up every few minutes. If you had the energy, you would have a bit back, but your head was in too much pain and you were too damn tired to get into it.  


When you arrive back, you immediately slump back onto the floor. Folykl lets you rest your back against her chest and you watch Lynera nervously pace back and forth.  


Marsti: Check my head and Folykl's leg -_-  
Marsti: And please tell me you have extra recouprecoons -_-  


Lynera ceases her pacing and takes a deep breath.  


Lynera: -!!! i have to check on bronya first!!!  
Folykl: _ fuck _ bronya  
Folykl: she’ll be fucking fine  
Folykl: how about making sure we don’t die first  
Folykl: you can go chase nook later  


You can immediately tell that was the wrong thing to say. You wonder if Folykl had picked up on her obsession or if she just blundered into it. Not for the first time, you wish Folykl wasn’t so damn good at being mean.  


Lynera slips her knife out of her skirts and you don’t even feel the familiar hit of adrenaline.  


Lynera:- i should cull you for talking about her like that  
Lynera: -but im going to leave and find bronya instead  


You wait with bated breath, but Lynera strides out of the room and slams the door behind her. You finally let out the breath you’ve been holding.  


Marsti: Folykl -_-  
Marsti: You need to learn when to shut the fuck up -_-  
Marsti: Okay?  


Folykl doesn’t reply for a moment, but you hear her eventually grunted in assent.  


Marsti: Good -_-  
Marsti: I’m going to get stuff to clean your leg, can you let go or no? -_-  


Folykl: make it quick  
Folykl: please  


You stand up quickly and begin tearing through drawers, picking up gauze, bandages, disinfectant, painkillers of varying strength. and after a moment's thought, a stitching kit. You pop open the bottle of weaker painkiller and swallow two, hoping they help kill the pounding in your head.  


Before you sit once again, you catch sight of the bag with your own first aid kit that you had left earlier. You hesitantly scan the room, then unzip it, and start shoving extra supplies in. Extra painkillers, bandages, everything you think might be useful on the road. You try to keep it light in subtle, but by the time you're done, the bag is significantly less empty.  


Folykl: are you done?  


Folykl’s voice sounds strained and you realize she’s been detached for you for too long. You sit back down in front of Folkyl, then gently place her legs into your lap..  


Marsti: Before I start doing anything, can you tell if my thinkpan is okay? Psionics good? -_-  


Folykl’s brows wrinkle, and you feel her legs press harder into you. The pounding in your head hasn’t gone away, and with Lynera and Bronya absent, you had no one to help you with your injury.  


Folykl: you Folykl have a concussion  
Folykl: it’s not too bad but i can feel your psionics flowing like a fucking river full of trash i can drag them though anyway though and keep your pan from rotting.  


You hiss in annoyance but nod anyway. A minor concussion was acceptable, especially if Folykl could help manage it. You still plan on following on the usual steps, but her assurances do help assuage your nerves.  


Marsti: Take off your pants -_-  


She reaches up and starts wiggling out of her tights, carefully pushing them down. She winces in pain as they brush past the wound on her leg. You lean forward to help, but before you can she’s got a smirk on her face and she’s snarking.  


Folykl: didn’t know you liked me that much already  


You can’t help the flush of red that comes to your cheeks and she cackles as her tights finally reach her ankles. You look away and count to ten, before turning back to her and focusing on the wound. You would _ not _ let yourself get baited.  


You pull off your gloves and clean your hands with some of the antiseptic, before soaking some gauze with it as well.  


Marsti: How much does it hurt? -_-  


You begin cleaning the wound, trying to not look up away from it as you do. You didn’t want to see Folykl in pain.  


Folykl: it hurts like a bitch  
Folykl: but i’ve had worse  
Folykl: i can still kind of stand on it  


You nod to yourself and discard the now blood-soaked piece of gauze, before soaking another one and repeating the process. The wound doesn’t look too deep, it didn’t look like it bit deeply into any muscle or anything else too important. It would still need to be stitched, but it wouldn’t be long until they had to come out.  


You finish cleaning the wound, then reach for the pills, holding out your hand. Folykl opens her own palm and you press them into it.  


Marsti: Swallow, I have to stitch your leg and it’s going to hurt -_-  
Folykl: what’s the point if you’re about to start anyway?  
Marsti: They’ll kick in fast, just swallow them -_-  


Folykl tightens her hand into a fist around the pills, before abruptly raising them to her mouth and dropping them in. You watch her swallow both and as soon as they’re down, she sticks out her tongue in disgust.  


Folykl: alright start sewing.  


You take a minute getting everything you need ready, while also giving some time for the medicine to kick in. You knew they worked fast, but you didn’t know how fast. Not like lowbloods got the nice stuff.  


You look up and study Folykl and notice her shoulders slowly dropping. You feel her legs losing tension by the second and nod your head. Time to start.  


Marsti: Hold still, I’m about to start -_-  


Folykl: okayyyy  


You ignore the long, drawn-out syllable, and the giggle that follows, and start stitching.  


She flinches a few times, but nothing severe enough to mess up your work. You hope that it won’t scar, but you know it likely will. The only troll you had ever stitched was yourself, and you always ended up with scars afterward. You could always hope though.  


The longer you work, the more tired you become, and by the time you finish the last stitch and dress the wound, you just want to collapse into a recouprecoon. You gently put Folykl’s legs down and lean your back against her once again. She wraps her arms around you than nuzzles into your neck, trying to get closer than she ever had before.  


Folykl: thank youu 

You blush again and try to think if you even should respond. You don’t think answering her when she was clearly drugged was a good idea. Thankfully your choice is made for you, and you feel Folykl’s arm loosening their grip around you while her head stops its burrowing. She stills, and the noise of quiet, steady breathing fills your ears.  


You can’t say you blamed her for sleeping. You really would like to join her, but the idea of Lynera coming back in when you and Folykl were both passed out was terrifying enough to keep you up. Besides, Folykl had the excuse of some strong painkillers in her favor.  


You’re not sure how much time passes before the door opens against, but it has to be an hour or more. Bronya enters the room, once again alone than pauses when she sees your battered form. You start talking before she does. 

Marsti: Do you have any extra recouprecoons? -_-  
Marsti: I really don’t want to sleep without sopor again -___-  
Bronya: Yes.  
Bronya: Follow me.  


You struggle to your feet once again, Folykl in tow.  
_______________________________________________________________________ 

You send Diemen off with enough caegers to buy an entire meatlocker. You even give him a backpack to shove all the meat he plundered from you into. You try to tell him he doesn’t have to leave, that he can stay, but he shakes his head and insists that he’s just going back into the sewers.  


You don’t argue.  


Armed with your new knowledge, a more solid plan starts to manifest in your pan. You run back up; the stairs and by the time you reach the top of your panting. Damn. You were ridiculously out of shape. All that time on your computers has not done marvels for your stamina. I guess you have no right to complain.  


The teals are sitting on the floor in silence. Stelsa is sitting behind, with her legs spread out to either side of her matesprit. Stelsa had her arms wrapped around the shorter troll's chest and Tyizas seem perfectly content to lean back into her.  


Tagore is glaring daggers at the palmhusk you gave him, his fingers jabbing away faster than your own can move. Whatever he was pissed about seemed to be distracting enough that he doesn’t even look at you as you enter the respiteblock.  


Mallek: i know where the hive is;  
Mallek: i can help you get there;  


That seems to catch his attention and he pauses his typing to look up at you. Stelsa and Tyzias turn their attention to you as well, but they don’t look as excited as you feel. They looked...defeated. Like even if you told them they were all off the culll list their melancholy couldn’t be pierced. You’d deal with it though.  


Stelsa: HAVEN’T YOU HELPED ENOUGH ALREADY?  


you wince at Steals words but forge on nonetheless. You could understand her bitterness, but you knew you couldn’t call her out on it. Biting back at this point would just cause everything to devolve into another argument, and you’d rather empty a pail than have to deal with it.  


Mallek: the lowblood rebellion is there;  
Mallek: they have space you wont get culled;  
Mallek: you could _ change _ things;  


You look at Tyizas as you deliver the last line. She was the most likely of the gathered trolls to be invested in changing things. She might have eventually joined the rebellion without any coaxing.  


Tyizas: let mmmme talk to stelsa  
Tyzias: alone  


She centers her gaze on Tagora for a second, until he look over to meet her eyes.  


He lets out a sigh but stands up. He walks your way, before walking by you, shoulder checking you on his way out. You turn on your heel and cast a single look back at Tyzias and Stelsa before following Tagora.  


You reach the mealblock once again and see Tagora’s face twisted in disgust as he looks at the mess Diemen made. Well, the messes you made too, but Diemen certainly didn’t help matters. He doesn’t turn to look at you, preferring to stare judgmentally at your hive.  


Mallek: is galkeh picking you up;?  


Tagora spares you a look over his shoulder, but still remains silent. You try again.  


Mallek: do you want me to drive you there;?  
Tagora: No, but I do want you to understand what you have done. Tyzias might not be willing to say it, but I will. You’re selfish. Just like I said before.  
Tagora: You are treating us like we are pawns in some game you’re playing, all so you can pretend to be a revolutionary.  
Tagora: So no, I do not want your help. I do not care if you “saved” me, I don’t care if you didn’t mean for this to happen. It did. Now, please.  
Tagora: Just leave me alone.  


Your first instinct is to snark back, to deny the claims, to reiterate that he’s alive only because of you, but you hold your tongue. That would only prove his point. You didn’t want to lord his life over his head like you were hot shit, but you also didn’t want to let go of his insults. But truthfully, you had nothing to say. A part of you wants to insist that he was _ right _.  


You decide to simply walk to your recreationblock and wait out whatever events were bound to happen. You feel a small amount of sympathy as a feeling of helplessness washes over you, and realize that this is what all the teals in your hive were dealing with. It was too late to change anything though and at the end of the night...  


At the end of the night you didn’t regret anything.  


You fish out your palmhusk and check the news, going on to chittr and a few other sites to keep track and see what kind of damage the purpleblood rampage was doing, checking up on Diemen's report. The images on the screen weren’t quite hitting you yet, but with every new picture you saw, every new report you read, the more you felt like shit. You did this. The purebloods wouldn’t be rioting if you hadn’t fucked up.  


The more you scroll through, the more you feel firmer in what you had done. Sure, the purplebloods were freaking out, but they were bound to do it anyway, even without your interference. If they wanted to get the selves culled by fighting with Trizza, they were more than welcome to. You wouldn’t feel bad for murderous clowns. It wasn’t your fault they were crazy.  


Tagora:... in his recreationblock.  


You put your ‘husk down and look up curiously. Moments later, Tyzias and Stelsa enter the room, pausing a couple feet away from you. You can tell that they had reached some sort of agreement. Or maybe they had just stopped arguing, but from what you could gather from Stelsa’s personality, the former was more likely than the ladder.  


The fact that they were standing in your recreationblock was probably the more obvious hint.  


Tyzias: get us to the goldblood’s hive  
Stelsa: BUT WE DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU AFTER THAT, WE DON’T WANT YOUR HELP BEYOND ANY APPOINTMENTS YOU SET UP FOR THIS OKAY? MAKE SENSE?  


You think for a moment. You wanted to help, but you didn’t want to just send them off and give up. To have everything you just did be wasted. You didn’t want to give up.  


And you wouldn’t.  


Mallek: that = good;  
Mallek: i know a troll who can smuggle you out;  
Mallek: i can give you supplies and palmhusks too; free of empire spyware;  
Mallek: i only need one thing;  
Mallek: once you get there; put me in contact with whos in charge;  
Mallek: fair enough;?  


Tyzias casts a sidelong glance towards Stelsa and the taller tealblood hesitates for a few seconds, then nods.  


You stand up, then stick out your hand. Tyzias shakes it, and then you both turn your attention to Stelsa. She looks hesitantly at your offer but reaches to take it nonetheless.  


Her grip was surprisingly strong, and you had a feeling she was squeezing just a bit tighter than she normally would drive in her point. You give a single squeeze back to let them know the message was received.  


Mallek: it = late;  
Mallek: so you cant leave tonight;  
Mallek: you can sleep in my ‘coon if you want;  


Stelsa looks over at it and wrinkles her face in disgust. She turns back to you and her lips peel back, probably to insult you, but Tyizas gives a slight shake of her head and Stelsa pauses. She gives an exasperated look to Tyizas in return, but the other merely shrugs. You see Stelsa deflate slightly, and you can tell they’ll accept.  


You feel a sudden hint of jealousy working its way through you, and the longer you looked up them the worse it got. They worked so well together, seamlessly. It was as if they didn’t even have to talk to understand what the other thought.  
  


Galekh: Where is he?1  
Tagora: Recreationblock.  


You mentally count the seconds in your head, and right on cue, Galekh emerges into the room. He pauses at the entrance, doing a double-take at the two teals in there with you. Stelsa shoots him a scathing look in return and quickly turns his attention back to you.  


Galekh: Tagora briefly explained when he demanded I come here, but I am still largely in the dark about the nature of this situation.2 For one thing, why are there so many tealbloods in your apartment? For another, why did you kidnap my kismesis, and finally, why did Tagora insist I come to you to ask these questions, instead of merely answering himself?3  
Mallek: wait;  
Mallek: he seriously didnt tell you anything;?  
Galkeh: No.  
Galekh: Typically, I would force him to explain, however, given the circumstances, I am prone to question you, as you are in fact, the person who kidnapped him.4  


How were you supposed to frame this? What the fuck was Tagora thinking? What, did he think you were going to take all the heat for this?  


You take a deep breath and search for your sense of resolve. You’re tired and you don’t want to deal with this, but if Tagora wanted to play this game, who were you to say no?  


Mallek: your kismesis = an imperial traitor  
Mallek: hes on the cull-on-sight list  


You keep your voice as neutral as possible, trying to lessen the impact of your words, but it doesn’t seem to work. Galekh seems no less shocked and he looks back at Tyzias and Stelsa. They don’t flinch and fix them with the same confidence they entered the room with.  
Galekh: Fine, I will require additional explanation later, but for now I suppose I can accept these premises.5 Now, please tell me how are at all involved with it and why you kidnapped him6  
Mallek: i didnt mean to kidnap him; troll i hired fucked up;  
Mallek: i only wanted one of them;  
Galekh: And why is it that you wanted one of them?  
Mallek: im sure tagora will tell you;  


Galekh takes a step back and takes a deep breath. You can tell he’s getting angry. His body was tense and the hard look on his face only grew by the second. He was trying to relax, but you’re not sure if there was even a point.  


the next time he speaks it’s only slightly lower than a shout.  


Galekh: Tagora, please come here.  
Galekh: I do not understand why _ every _ troll here is giving me the run around7, but it was you who called me here, and if Mallek refuses to answer, you’re going to have to. Galekh: Now please tell me. Why the fuck did Mallek end up kidnapping you!  


Tagora swaggers into the room, looking smugger than you’ve ever seen him before. It hits you that you just participated in winding up his kismesis, and don’t miss how overly pleased he appears.  


Tagora: He wants to play rebel.  
Tagora: He thought he could find an into the rebellion with-  


Tyizas turns his way, and Tagora falters for just a moment.  
Tagora: one of us.  


Galekh: You’re all rebels and you dragged me into your hive?8  
Galekh: Mallek, please tell me this is one of your “epic” pranks.9  
Galekh: If it’s not then-  


You cut him off.  


Mallek: then what;?  
Mallek: if youre going to say’ “report us to the drones;” then just now know youll get culled too;  
Mallek: youve been filling buckets with two trolls in this room;  
Mallek: trizza wont let you live;  
Tagora: I’m sorry _ what _?  
Tagora: Galekh, please tell me you haven’t pailed him.  
Galekh: Whether or not I did so has nothing to do with the current circumstances10, both of you have dragged me here and it’s going to get us all culled.  
Galkeh: What were you thinking?  
Mallek: for the record; i didnt ask you to come;  
Mallek: i didnt want you involved;  
Galekh: What a fantastic sentiment, why don’t you go to Trizza and explain that to her then?  
Galekh: Do you think you’re going to get away with? Or that Trizza won’t find you? Do you have a plan at all?11  
Mallek: yeah but youre not getting involved so you dont need it;  
Mallek: this != your business;  


The lie comes out easily, but it's just as much for Galekh’s benefit as your own. Admitting that your plans didn’t go beyond “get Tyzias and Stelsa out and hope they escape,” would not be well received. That and Galekh had become X factor in your plans, all because of fucking Tagora.  


Galekh: So you expect me to take Tagora and just leave? What about us?12 If you go through with this we can never talk again.  
Mallek: yeah;  


You didn’t want to say it, but you had to. You had already ruined your chances and he didn’t even know about it, you couldn’t lie again. Couldn’t say that you weren’t going to continue trying to find the rebellion, trying to help it. What would be the point?  
Galekh: I-  
Galekh: Fine.  
Galekh: Tagora, you’re lucky I hate you so much.  
Galekh: Adalov, go fuck yourself.13  


Galekh stalks out of the room, but Tagora lingers for a moment longer, raises his finger to his mouth, and makes a zipping motion towards Tyzias and Stelsa. He then shoots you a triumphant sneer and follows his kismesis. 

You hear the door to your hive open, then slam loudly. By the sound of it, Galekh had put all of his natural indigo strength into it, which meant that something broke. You couldn’t say you could judge him for it.  


Mallek: so;  
Mallek: that was pretty bad huh;  


Tyzias and Stelsa give a slight nod, look at each other, then leave the room as well, likely climbing up to get into your recouprecoon and sleep.  


You limp over to a loungeplank, lay down, and stare blankly at a wall, waiting for a sleep never seems to come.  
______________________________________________________________________ 

Something keeps steadily prodding you, almost relentlessly. You slide your eyes halfway open and take a deep breath. The sopor on your skin felt good, and being able to peel out of your sweat and blood-soaked clothes if only for a little bit, felt better than you ever imagined. When you first climbed into the sopor and dragged Folykl with you, you were too tired to worry about your mutual lack of clothes. Being woken up in the middle of the day, by what you’re sure is Folykl, brought your embarrassment closer to the front of your pan.  


Marsti: What -_____  
Marsti: It can’t even be halfway through the day, why are you awake -_-  
Folykl: one because you told me to cause you think your pan is worse than it is  
Folykl: and i wanted to talk  
Folykl: alone  


Oh. Yeah you had forgotten you had a concussion that you needed to check on. You didn’t want to fall asleep and not wake up. You almost thank Folykl for waking you and ask her how your head is, but before you can she is shifting around in the small recuperacoon you occupied, rolling over so you were chest to chest.  


Folykl: do you really want to go to that hive?  


The question takes you by surprise and you can feel yourself frowning. Was she thinking of trying to stay in the caverns?  
Marsti: Why wouldn’t I -_-  
Marsti: Where else would we go? -_-  
Folykl: i don’t know  
Folykl: but it all seems too fucking easy  
Folykl: and i-  
Folykl: i don’t want to get culled  
Folykl: not like kuprum  


You don’t know what to say. You didn’t have any practice comforting trolls, in fact, you didn’t even get much of a chance to do it. You had friends sure, but there was a mutual understanding among lowbloods that the risk of being culled was high and it was just a part of life. Reminding fellow lowbloods of that won you no rewards, but you’re not sure that mattered anymore. Not like when they, when _ we _ were getting culled like this.  


Marsti: I don’t want to get culled either -_-  
Marsti: But we’ve gotten this far and- -_-  
Marsti: I don’t want to give up -_-  
Marsti: I want to go to the hive -_-  


Folykl drops her forehead to gently rest against your knows, and you feel her take a deep breath.  


Folykl: your pan is never going to be permanently fucked up by the way so stop worrying about it  
Marsti: Your leg is going to be fine too -_-  


Folykl slowly tips her head to the side and then her chapped lips press against yours for the briefest of moments.  


Folykl: sleep  


You do.  
___________________________________________________________________ 

Early in the dawn, an hour before you even woke up in the outpost, Bronya comes in and offers to wash you and Folykl’s clothes, as well as donate you some new ones. You’re all too happy to agree, and let yourself fall back to sleep, thrilled with the idea of clean clothes.  


By the time you wake up the second time, your newly washed clothes sit a few feet away from the ‘coon you and Folykl sleet in, as well as a piece of paper. You rise out of the ‘coon, bringing Folykl with you, and the two of you dress in silence.  


You look at her nervously a few times, but she seems the same as ever as if the events of last night hadn’t even happened. You wonder if you should bring up her kiss, but you didn't want to ruin the solidarity the two of you had built so far. There were more important things to worry about now anyway, you could just talk about it later.  


When you finish you briefly read over the note, then shove it into your pocket.  


Folykl: i heard paper  
Folykl: what was that?  
Marsti: Note from Bronya and directions to the hive. She wants us to meet her in the medicalblock before we go -_-  
Marsti: She didn’t say why though -_-  


Folykl stomach grumbles and the sound of it makes you realize just how hungry you are too. You hadn’t eaten in days. All the adrenaline made it hard to remember, but after last night's rest, you realize that you are dying to eat.  


Folykl: we’re getting food  


It’s a statement, not a question, not that you’d say no even if it had been.  


Marsti: Okay, get on and we’ll go -_-  


Folykl climbs up to her now familiar perch on your back and you leave for the medicalblock. Not for the first time, you muse over how she clings to you so tightly, so effectively. You knew for a fact that she wasn’t very strong, but somehow she held herself up the entire time you moved, never once complaining. You feel yourself growing more and more curious, and finally, the question forces it’s way out  


Marsti: How do you never fall off of me? -_-  
Folykl: what?  
Folykl: what the fuck do you mean? i just hold on  
Marsti: But don’t you get tired? -_-  
Folykl: no?  
Folykl: why would i ?  
Folykl: im attached to a living battery  
Folykl: if i'm tired it's because you are  
Folykl: maybe your pan is fucked up how did you not know that?  


You reach behind and flick her ear.  


Marsti: Excuse me for not being the voidrot expert -_-  
Marsti: I seem to recall you being hardly better, you still let yourself be dirty -_-  
Folykl: you don’t smell like moonlight yourself either  


You pressed your nose into your shoulder and sniffed. You mostly caught the scent of recently cleaned clothes, but there was an undercurrent of dirtiness nonetheless.  


Marsti: Whatever -_-  


You reach the medicalblock and see Bronya leaning against the wall tapping away on her palmhusk. She looks up at the sound of your footsteps and gives you a winning smile.  


Bronya: vV I’m glad to see you’re both okay!!! Vv  
Bronya: Are you hungry?  


Was she reading your mind?  


Folykl: will your batshit jadeblood friend be there?  
Folykl: she might still want to cull me  


You instantly see the change in Bronya’s posture. She looked _ tired _, like this was something she dealt with everyday. Thinking about it, it probably was.  


Bronya: What did she do this time?  
Folykl: just some threats  
Folykl: she really wants to get herself all up in your nook  


You reach up and slap her on the head, a bit harder than you probably needed to.  


Marsti: Remember what I said about shutting up? This is one of those times -___-  


Bronya sighs and shakes her head.  


Bronya: No, she’s right.  
Bronya: It wouldn’t be the first time Lynera has been…  
Bronya: Not nice.  
Folykl: bit of an understatement  
Marsti: It doesn’t matter -_-  
Marsti: You mentioned food? -_-  
Bronya: Yes!  
Bronya: Come with me!  


You’re not sure if Folykl had any more to say about Lynera, but you can tell that Bronya would like to avoid the topical altogether. You're not sure you blamed her. Even if Lynera was crazy, you had to admit that she was a damn good fighter.  


The mealblock isn’t very far, and you find yourself there after an incredibly brief walk. Right now, the room was empty besides you, and you wondered if that was by design or by chance. The room itself was rather large, with a few tables clustered in the middle. Just past that, was a huge hungertrunk, as well as enough burners to cook a feast.  


Bronya gesture for you to sit at one of the tables and continues forward, opening up the hungertrunk and rummaging around. As you take another look around the room you’re struck by how out of place the smooth mealblock is compared to the cave it was placed in.  


Folykl slides off of your back, and you think she is going to sit next to you, only pressing her body against the side of her own. Instead, she seats herself in your lap, settling herself down and carefully avoiding putting to much pressure on her leg. You’re surprised by how well she fits, and it truly hits you just how _ small _ she was. Her bad posture hid a number of inches of her true height, but even if she stood up straight you’d be a head taller than her. Everything about her, from her legs to her arms, was thin and scrawny.  


And fuck did you think it was _ cute _  


Folykl chest begins to lowly vibrate, and she tilts her head back, resting her head on your shoulder as she looks at you cheekily. You want to call her out on her purring, but Bronya finishes gathering whatever she was looking for in the hungerturnk and is slamming it shut. She turns around and you see her flush jade.  


Bronya: Are you two...matesprits? Because-  
Bronya: 1. You seem really close.  
Bronya: 2. You look really cute together.  


It’s your turn to blush, but Folykl takes everything in stride, seemingly unphased entirely.  


Folykl: no  


But she turns around to catch your eyes again and winks and suddenly you don’t know anything.  


Folykl: i’m fucking starving  
Folykl: so are we going to eat or what?  


Bronya sits down and pushes a container in front of you. Folykl wastes no time and opens it up and you see a pile of sandwiches sitting on top of each other. Folykl snatches one up instantly and she’s eating instantly. Bronya looks at you and gestures for you to take one. You grab one and after you do, Bronya reaches for her own.  


: Thank you for helping, but I have one more request.  
Bornya: 1. We need to make it look like the highbloods got culled by drones.  
Bronya: 2. No one here knows how to hack.  
Bronya: So, Folykl, can you hack?  


Folykl doesn’t stop chewing, and just opens her mouth to speak.  


Folykl: cause i’m a fucking goldblood?  
Folykl: bold of you assume i know shit  
Folykl: but lucky enough for you i know some  
Folykl: how the fuck that’s going to help is beyond me  


You eat carefully yourself, but watching Folykl drops crumbs everywhere and make a mess of the table in front of you is sparking your desire to clean. Maybe you get Bronya to let you use an ablution trap before you left.  


Bronya claps her hands together happily and your stuck with the dissonance of her joy and the topic you’re talking about. Even though you were well acquainted with culling, it was another thing to do it yourself. You’re still not sure how you felt, but you’re glad you could push it down to deal with later. It was a train of thought for another night.  


Bronya: Good.  
Bronya: Can you change the location of something? Like where the palmhusk last signaled?  
Bronya: We turned them off, but if they don’t report back tonight, Trizza is going to get suspicious.  
Folykl: lucky for you  
Folykl: that’s what i’m best at  
Bronya: vV Good! Vv  
Bronya: After we’re done I will show you where to do it.  
Marsti: How can you hack if you can’t see? -_-  


Folykl reaches for another sandwich and bites, before answering.  


Folykl: my ears aren’t busted  
Folykl: besides i can see psionics which if you didn't know is energy  
Folykl: computers have one of those things dumbass but none of them are going to be as easy to read as my old palmhusk or computer that used to be at my hive  
Folykl: so you’re going to have to help  


You roll your eyes and finish your own sandwich, reaching for another as well. You finish your meal in silence, and when it’s all over, Folykl burps loudly and turns to look at Bronya.  


Folykl: show me  


You end up in what looks like mini bookhive, with two or three computers seated on a long desk, separated from one another by stone barriers on the desk. There are five palmhusks forming a messy pile next to one of the computers, and you have a feeling that’s where you needed to go.  


Folykl slides herself into your lap, and then she’s looking at Bronya.  


Folykl: you don’t have to just stand there like a wriggler  
Folykl: this is going to take time  


Bronya acts as if she hadn’t even been insulted as she nods he head. She puts her hands on her hips and gives the two of you a final once over.  


Bronya: I'll come back in an hour to check on progress then!  
Bronya: 1. If you finish before I come back, just wait for me, you’ll get lost otherwise.  
Bronya: 2. I want to give you supplies before you leave.  


Folykl grunts her assent and before you can respond to Broyna yourself she’s striding out of the room.  


Your eyes remain on the doorway for a moment longer as you think about the jade in your head. She was surprisingly nice all things considered. You don’t think you'd ever met a troll that was willing to help as Bronya was. You don’t think you had even seen her bad side yet, and she managed to put up with Folykl’s constant antagonism if it was nothing. She was a bit bossy, but you knew there had to be something else that made her tick. You wonder if you’ll ever get to see it  


Folykl: alternia to marsti  
Folykl: are you going to stop fucking staring off into space like you’re seeing ghosts?  
Marsti: Do I need to stop s taring off? -_-  
Folykl: yeah you fucking do  
Folykl: open up the computer and start helping  
Folykl: i wasn’t kidding when i said this would take a while  
_____________________________________________________________ 

Folykl finishes her work a minute before Bronya pops her head back in and you’re glad to see something that would set you free from staring and reading out things you didn’t even understand. Whatever Folykl was doing, you couldn’t keep track of at all. But somehow, with the computer and access to all the palmhusks, she had made things work. Or that’s what she told you at least. You don’t even know how you could be sure, but Folykl assures you that she’s “not a dumbass or wrigglers,” and that everything went smoothly.  


Folykl doesn't even look up at Bronya’s entrance and just settles herself deeper into you, letting her head rest against your shoulder. You don’t know when you had snaked your own arms around her to pull her closer, but she’s colder than you are and dragging her closer felt nice. She started it anyway, so who cares if you liked cuddling her too?  


Folykl: done  
Bronya: vV Thank you !!! Vv  
Bronya: vV Thank you for keeping my jades safe! Vv  


You would think she was playing up her appreciation, but Bronya didn’t hide her emotions well and you're pretty sure she was being entirely genuine. She drops two bags that she had been carrying on the floor in front of her and puts her hands behind her back as she continues talking.  


Bronya: I brought you supplies like I promised  
Bronya: 1. It has food and water.  
Bronya: 2. It has blankets  
Bronya: 3. This is the bag you left by the ‘coon  


You look at the gathered supplies and hope it’s not too heavy to carry. You might have to cut down on some things before you go.  


Bronya: I already gave you the way to Zebede’s hive or…  
Bronya: I guess the way that my lowblood friends have told me!  
Bronya: Is there anything else you need?  
Marsti: can we use your ablutiontrap before we leave? -_-  
Marsti: We both need it -_-   
Folykl: wait i-  


you shove a hand over Folykl's mouth, minding her fangs and roll your eyes. Bronya seems to get the message and nods her head cheerfully.  


Folkyl goes limp in surrender.  


Folykl: using the trap was a waste of time  
Marsti: We’ve literally just left the caverns and you’re still complaining? -____-  
Folykl: yes  
Folykl: and i’ll have plenty of time to do it  


You run your hand through your hair and ignore her as you exit out of the jade caverns, and begin your trek towards Zebede’s hive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This is not the time to make an asinine joke.    
2\. To put it incredibly lightly.   
3\. He ignored my questions about his initial message.   
4\. Don’t think this means Tagora is getting out of proving his own explanation.   
5\. I understand the urgency of this matter if this is the case.   
6\. Please explain, as even with that being true, it doesn’t imply kidnapping is the solution.   
7\. Neither Tagora nor you have been clear in the slightest, it is absurd.   
8\. Are you out of your fucking _ pans? _   
9\. None of your pranks have ever been “epic,” but they would be a greater comfort than this.   
10\. We are not having this conversation right now.   
11\. You ran headlong into this, didn’t you?   
12\. We can't see each other ever again if you do this.   
13\. I mean this in the _worst_ way possible.   



	5. Capture and Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Bigger chapter than usual, and of course that means more room for mistakes. As usual I don't have a beta, but as usual I think I covered everything. Let me know if there is anything that needs fixing in the comments, but most of all...  
Enjoy!

Halfway through the day, you give up trying to sleep. The lack of sopor and the night you just had made you too exhausted to sink into it. You itched to go upstairs to your computers, to do something other than just lay down, but you couldn't. Tyzias and Stelsa would kill you if you woke them up, even if you told them it was for their benefit. 

Your thoughts turn to Galekh and a wave of bitterness comes over you. He really thought you were going to fail, didn’t he? That you were just some idiot running headlong into disaster. You hadn’t expected the indigo to have too much faith in you, but now you can’t stop replaying his words in your pan over and over in your head. 

You would prove him wrong. You wouldn’t let yourself lose. You may not be able to do everything alone, but you never needed to. Not when you could pay people to do some of the hard parts for you. You needed a troll to hire. A troll more subtle than Konyll and whose specialty was escape rather than mere violence. They didn’t even have to be a mercenary, just someone who could… 

A troll comes to mind and you suddenly find your desire to reach your computers nearly overweighing your desire to not disturb the sleeping Teals. It was a troll that Galekh had talked about, some ceruleanblood who apparently pirated art. That wasn’t the part you were interested in though, stealing was hardly anything new. No, it was the _ type _ of art she made that interested you. Art appealing to the sensibilities of purplebloods. 

From what you recall, Galekh had only brought it up to point out, as he put it out, how “uncultured” purplebloods were for adoring not only tasteless art but tasteless plagiarized art. Not only that, but he went on to complain about her alledged violence and other criminal acts. Breaking into museums, stealing physical pieces of art, and even culling purples. She was perfect. 

You figured that there was no way she liked the purplebloods and with the way they were acting, there is no way the empire would let her in either. She did too much to appeal to highblood sensibility, and the empire would probably charge her with inspiring a revolt via her art and cull her, leaving her ripe for you to come in. 

You almost begin searching for her on chitter, before a spare thought blindsides you. Could you really drag another troll into it? Another unknown? You had already dragged Galekh into it, and you literally had two sleeping tealbloods who would leave if they could. But you promised them a way out. You _ needed _ them to get out. Needed to affirm that everything you had done so far wasn’t just one massive mistake. 

The urge to find the troll grows stronger as you sort through your options. You didn’t have a choice, did you? You couldn’t just let the two teals live in your hivestem for the rest of their life, couldn’t fuck them over like that. You promised to get them out, and that's what you'd do. 

The shift in your thoughts robs you of some of your confidence, and truly, you're not all that confident anymore. You feel like you’re about to get yourself into another disaster, but your fingers start typing anyway, scouring chittr for a trace of a ceruleanblood art-thief. 

For now, you would just look her up, find out more about her. You wouldn’t plan anything yet, not until you know more. You were just checking. Scouting out options. Really feeling things out instead of just toying with them in your pan. 

You’re not sure how much time passes, but the sun is vanishing again and you note, with no amount of surprise, that you have been up all day. It didn’t matter though. You had compiled quite a bit of useful information about your target. Her name was Remele, and apparently, she was bigger in the highblood art scene than you would have ever expected. 

You also find out, with not a great amount of surprise, that her career has been plagued by an endless stream of controversy, plagiarism only being the tip of the iceberg. The rumors that Galekh had conveyed to you seemed to be pretty substantiated. You can't find out whether or not she killed a purple or broke into museums, but you do find out that she's gotten into fights with several at her shows, that she has undergone several lawsuits for art theft, and has even had banned quite a few prominent highbloods banned from even stepping foot at her showings. She wallowed in controversy like Trizza wallowed in attention. 

It was more than enough for you to work with, made even better by the slew of new comments posted on her pages by purples, none of them friendly, and most of them violent. Considering the current state of affairs, you were left to believe that some of the death threats on her pages were dead serious. 

Which, in a way, was good for you. It meant she probably wanted to escape too. The purpleblood riots had just happened, so you'd be shocked if she had already made it out of thrashthrust. She was perfect. 

You collect the rest of personal details quite easily, smiling slightly at the spot of decent luck. You would make sure this did not end up like Tyzias 2.0 and stop looking too soon. You end up with her full name, hive address, and almost all the other details you wanted,m taking care to hunt down every last thing you can. 

Once you finish, you stand up to get some water and feel your legs nearly shaking with the effort of supporting you. The exhaustion you felt had been forced into the background while you worked, but you knew it it was now rearing its head. You knew that could still put it off for a while longer though. This would not be the first time you stayed up all day, not by a long shot. 

You trudge over to the mealblock and fill a cup up with water. You glance at your clock and hum quietly to yourself. It was still early enough that you doubted Tyizas and Stelsa were up yet, but it was late enough that you could feel justified in waking them up by using your computer. You had a troll to get into contact with and you’re sure that they’d like to get out of your hive sooner rather than later. 

You’re in front of your door knocking loudly at it a minute later, having concluded that you would take whatever tongue lashing Stelsa gave you in exchange for more time to work. 

You wait a few seconds and then open the door and walk in. You were trying to be nice, but it was still your hive and you’d be damned if you got locked out of the place you spent the majority of your time for any longer than you had to. Tyzias and Stelsa are already awake, out of your ‘coon, and dressed for the day. If they managed to do that all in the 10 seconds you gave them before you walked in, you’d be impressed, but you had a strong suspicion they didn't. 

Mallek: i know my mealblock != clean;  
Mallek: but i still have good you can eat;  
Mallek: i need to contact the troll who i-  
Tyzias: wwwwho you wwwwhat?  


Your mind is racing as you try to decide whether or not to lie. You had already told the teals that you would get them out, and going back on it now by saying “hope” was not a winning strategy. On the other hand, if you didn’t manage to get Remele to work with you, you were fucked. Stelsa and Tyizas may not look like the fighting types now, but if that happened, you’re not sure you liked your chances of it remaining the same. 

Mallek: i need to contact the troll thats going to help you get out;  
Mallek: shes in with the purplebloods;  
Mallek: kinda;  
Stelsa: IF YOU HAND US OVER TO SOME PURPLEBLOOD I WILL NOT GO WITH THEM I HAVE SEEN HOW THEY ACT AND I HAVE NEVER MET ONE WHO I LIEKD OR KEPT DECENT APPOINTMENTS THEYRE ALL TOO INTO THEIR WEIRD CLOWN RELIGION SO IF THAT IS YOUR PLAN THAN YOU CAN COUNT ME OUT I WOULD RATHER-  
Mallek: please;  
Mallek: its not;  
Mallek: shes a cerulean;  
Tyzias: a cerulean?  
Tyzias: isn’t that a bit of a high caste to be handing us over to?  
Tyzias: howwww do you knowwww shes not wwwwwith trizza  
Tyzias: mmmmost midcaste trolls are  
Mallek: the empire does not like purplebloods;  
Mallek: she makes art for them;  
Mallek: no way she = a trizza finlicker; she wouldve picked a differenty style fi she was;  


Neither of them looked like they were ready to believe you, and you couldn’t say you blamed them. Your “alliance,” if it could even be called that, was based on nothing more than self-preservation. You didn’t need them to completely trust you though, you just needed them to trust you enough to do what you say. 

You walk over to your computer chair and sit down, then start to unlock everything. Tyzias and Stelsa seem to get the message that you were done talking and exit your respiteblock. You sigh in relief at their absence, all too happy to be able to have an empty respiteblock again.  


You pull all the information about Remele from your palmhusk and begin organizing and sorting through it on your computer. You know you’re wasting time, you probably had enough to contact her already, but you wanted to make sure of everything. 

Once you have everything about her neat and organized in front of you, you pull our hands away from the keyboard and stare. How were you going to contact her? How should you? You didn't really want to use chitter, but it was likely your best shot at contacting her quickly. 

You decide that you would send the inital message through twitter, but route all your other communications with Remele through your mostly debugged cloaking project. More cryptography could only help, and you were pretty sure you had cleared most of the major bugs. It would run, it would hopefully work, and it would give a bit more peace of mind. 

You pull it up and then don’t let yourself hesitate as you pull up Remele’s chittr, sending a link for a secure chatroom with the accompanying message: “want to hire your help; will pay whatever you want; please click the link;  


You stare hard at the message for a second and frown. You wonder how long it'd take her to read it. She had her receipts turned off, so you wouldn't be able to instantly tell. As you read over the message again, you feel a bit of heat coming to your cheeks. 

This looked like one of the most pathetic attempts at a scam in the world. If it were you, you wouldn't click it. You go ahead and shoot off another message, trying to explain your situation in the most neutral, uncullable language possible, more for her benefit than your own. Not like they could find out who messaged Remele, but they sure as hell could cull her for getting it. 

You stare for a long time at the new message but eventually force yourself to do something else. It was good enough. At least your request didn't look so much like a scam anymore. 

Even as you pull up camera feeds and city maps, your pan won't let thoughts of Remele go away, and you keep looking back at the page, waiting for her answer. There could be a million reasons why she wasn’t answering you immediately, the most obvious one being that she was asleep, and the other being that she was just busy. That did little to assuage your anxieties though. Still, you knew you could wait a little longer. She would see it eventually. Her chitter was one of the more active ones you had ever seen, and the idea that she wouldn’t respond at all, just simply ignore you, didn’t seem to be in line with her personality. You hoped so at least. You can't exactly afford for your judgment to be wrong.  


You look back at your various camera feeds in Thrashthrust, and try to get a first-hand view of the damage that the purplebloods caused. You're pausing every now and then to look a bit closer at cameras in highblood sections when you hear someone clearing their throat behind you. You turn around and are greeted with the sight of Tyizas standing casually behind you, one of your mugs in her hand. She takes a long drink her eyes not leaving yours the entire time and you can feel a familiar tension filling the air. 

Tyzias: wwwwwhy do you have to hire a troll to get us out?  
Tyzias: wwwwhy can’t wwwwe just take your scuttlebuggy  
Tyzias: wwwwhy can’t you just drive us there?  
Tyzias: you let galkeh go  


Oh, so that's what she wanted to talk about? At least it was a question you had an answer to. 

Mallek: galekh lives close; it was his choice to go out in a riot;  
Mallek: could have gotten culled but he doesnt care; thinks hes too smart;  
Mallek: he also didnt leave thrashthrust; which is what you want to do;  
Mallek: its hard to leave the city easily now; drones; purpleblood; theyre all looking for trolls to cull; cant just stroll out without some troll noticing;  


You gesture to the images on your monitor to highlight your point. 

Tyzias takes a long and hard look at your screens, sweeping her gaze slowly at every single one. 

Tyzias: firstly, wwwwwhy didn’t you tell us this before?  
Tyzias: wwwwould’ve been nice  
Tyzias: second of all, i still dont see howwww hiring another troll will help  
Mallek: like i said; drones and purpleblood are patrolling; blocking all the easy and some of the hard exits out of trashthrust;  
Mallek: im hiring her cause she can get out and slip-by;  
Mallek: she = a thief;  
Mallek: and she = safe;  
Mallek: the two of you dont know shit about escaping from drones or trolls; neither do i;  
Mallek: she does; she has to;  
Mallek: and shes all i got; dont want to leave you to die alone; she can help protect you; shes culled purples before;  
Mallek: if you want to leave alone; you can try: i wont stop you;  
Mallek: but it != safe  
Mallek: youll probably get culled;  
Mallek: my idea != not perfect; but its better than yours;  


You don't mention that you can't confirm or reject the fact that she's culled purples before so technically, you weren't lying. 

Tyizas face hardly changes, and you wonder if she's still going to insist on doing it alone. You hoped she wouldn't. You said probably when really, you would have liked to tell her it was 100 percent suicidal to try alone. However, the last thing you wanted to do was wholly discourage her. 

Tyzias: fine  
Tyzias; hire wwwwhoever you wwwwant i dont care so long as wwwwwe get out  
Tyzias: it would be nice to knowwww stuff aoubt the status of the city wwwwithout asking you though  
Tyzias: i don’t even have a palmhusk  


Shit. She was right. You had given one to Tagora, but you never gave one to her. Mallek: you can have one;  
Mallek: i have a bunch;  
Mallek: here;  


You yank open the drawer beneath your desk and signal for her to take them. 

Mallek: they are secure;  
Mallek: no troll = gonna track you;  


Tyzias looks at you skeptically, but reaches into the drawer and fishes two of the devices out anyway. You think she’s about to say something more, but the flash of a notification brings your attention back to your computers and you instantly whirl around in your chair. Remele must have finally clicked the link you sent her and Tyzias presence fades into the background as you wait to read her reply. 

Anonymous: Who the fuque are you and how do you knowe so much about me?  
Anonymous: im an information specialist;  
Anonymous: i saw that you were good at stealing; figured you might want a job;  
Anonymous: Yes.  
Anonymous: I’ll do it.  
Anonymous: You have to come to me thoughe, I’m not coming to you.   


you frown as you try to think of how to proceed. She hadn’t even asked about what the job was. 

Anonymous: youre not going to ask what the job;?  
Anonymous: Safer to talk in person.  
Anonymous: Not going to trust some random troll out of the blue.  
Anonymous: fine;  
Anonymous: but if im paying you; why do i have to move;?  
Anonymous: Why do you think dumbass?  
Anonymous: You know everything about me and I know nothing about you.  
Anonymous: Here I’ll put it in words you can get through your thinkpan.  
Anonymous: If you don’t come, there is no deal.  


Fuck. This was moving way faster than you wanted it to, with way less information than you wanted to have. Sure you could hire another troll, but Remle was perfect. You didn’t want to run around asking contacts who you weren’t even sure were alive. You didn’t have time for that. 

Anonymous: fine;  
Anonymous: but when we come; we are leaving right after were done talking;  
Anonymous: no time; this != a game  
Anonymous: Greate  
Anonymous: I don’t care, so long as you come.  
Anonymous: where are you;?  
Anonymous: My studio.  
Anonymous: Here is the address.  
Anonymous: Sent a location.  
Anonymous: Meet me there in an hour sharp. Stay in your scuttlebuggy, I'll come to you. That work for you?  
Anonymous: yeah;  
Anonymous: ill be there;  
Anonymous terminated the chat!  


Everything about this seemed suspicious, but you could handle it. You had worked with far sketchier trolls in the past. 

Tyzias: thats our wwwway out?  
Tyzias: a troll you've never even worked with?  
Tyzias: are you out of your thinkpan?  


Right. Tyzias was still here. 

Mallek: things are fucked;  
Mallek: you dont have to come; only i do;  


You can feel Tyzias’s eyes boring into the back of your head and hear her as she takes another long sip from her coffee cup. 

Tyzias: fine  
Tyzias: wwwwhatever if this is how it is, then fine  
Tyzias:i’ll tell stelsa  


You hear her shuffle out of the room, once again leaving you in silence. You let your eyes shut and try to relax in your chair, attempting to mentally prepare yourself for the meeting ahead. From what you could see on the security feeds, the purplebloods had stopped rioting and Thrashthrust was currently safer than it had been in the past few days. That didn’t mean much though. 

The damage to the city was extensive, indiscriminate, and entirely unnecessary. While Trizza’s drones had virtually destroyed Outglut and any other lowblood area, the purplebloods had traipsed through the higher caste sections, destroying and culling any troll unlucky enough to be caught in their rampage. You had a feeling that the riots weren't going to be a one-time thing either. Just like Trizza’s culling spree. 

You’re not even sure if you should stay in the city at this point, or whether you should just go with Tyzias and Stelsa. Even if it was wiser to leave, you didn’t want to. Didn’t want to give up all the tech and other junk you had spent your whole life acquiring. You didn’t want to wander off to a hive in the middle of nowhere. You could help from home. 

Less selfishly, if you left you’d just be left with more and different problems. There would be no one to track any threats around them, no one to disable cameras, no one to even do the most basic of logistics. You would be better off here, where you could do something and where your greatest skill wasn’t being useless and out of shape. 

You look at the clock and weigh how much time you have until you need to leave. Remele didn’t want to give you much prep time, but that worked more in your favor than hers. If she wasn’t interested in working than she’d have put it off. 

You sigh and decide that you would grab something from your mealblock, wait around for another few minutes, then depart. You didn’t know why Remele was so obsessed with timing, but you didn’t care. Sure, it was weird, but it probably was just a test to see how serious you are about the arrangement. She might have just been weird too. It wouldn’t be the first troll you met with an odd obsession. 

You arrive at your mealblock and eat quietly, occasionally glances up at Stelsa and Tyzias. They were sitting at your table and no matter how much you would’ve liked to sit and eat instead of standing up at your counter, you knew joining them would do nothing for the tension in the room. They were toying around with the palmhusks you had given them anyway, so it’s not like you were going to get any useful conversation out of it either. 

You finish eating and throw your plate into your overloaded sink. You try to make another internal promise to clean it, but you can’t bring you brings yourself to. You had more important things to worry about. 

Stelsa: YOURE LEAVING TO GO TO AN APPOINTMENT LOOKING LIKE THAT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU LOOK LIKE SOME DEAD THING MY LUSUS FOUND AND DRAGGED INTO THE HIVE HOW CAN YOU TREAT YOURSELF LIKE THAT-  


You ignore Stelsa as your rush out the door of your hive and slam it shut. 

____________________________________________________________ 

You carefully navigate the roads, avoiding the debris that had ended up in the road from the purpleblood riot. A few other trolls were walking the streets, and some construction drones were cleaning up the road, but the city was emptier than you had ever seen it before. Your security feeds didn’t do it justice. 

You drive way slower than usual, looking down at your clock now and then to check the time. You're on track to be on time, but the closer you get, the more apprehensive you become. Usually, the drive to where she sent you would've been at most thirty minutes, but with all the rubble and destruction it was taking forever. It also was getting worse and more ravaged as you got closer to your destination, adding to your apprehension. 

Still, you keep driving and don't turn around. You were committed and you wouldn't stop now. Your GPS informs you that you're close and you look down at your lap to take a deep breath. One minute to go. Right on time. 

You see the building two blocks in front of you, and you carefully sweep over the area a final time before entirely committing to your approach. 

You come to a stop in front of the building, looking out your window at the front door when a purpleblood clutching a limp arm bursts out and starts looking around frantically. You can’t see their sign due to their dark T-shirt being drenched in blood, and their massive pair of parachute pants is covered with the stuff as well. 

Your body is moving before you do, and you’re about to slam on your pedal to escape when the door opens once again, followed by a massive club zipping through the air faster than you can track. It caves in the skull of the lowblood and a minor explosion of gore follows the impact. 

A ceruleanblood carpeted in a mix of purple blood and her own runs out the door and straight to your car. She bangs on the door, holding her club in one hand, screaming something you can’t understand. It takes you a moment, but then you make the connection between the cerulean pounding on your door and the troll you were supposed to meet. It was fucking Remele. 

You unlock the door and Remle tears it open, but two purplebloods are rushing out of the door behind her, heading right for her. One hefts a massive spear and heaves it straight towards you and Remele. She dives out of the way and you duck, covering your head as the spear flies right through both of you windows, shattering the glass. You wait for a beat, then look up cautiously to locate Remele. 

She was fighting the two purplebloods who had followed her out of the building, her back to the street as the purples faced her down. She was swinging her club around wildly, but there was an underlying intelligence to the motions. She was forcing the purplebloods back, closer to the building, forcing them to dodge instead of attack. 

Remele lashes out, again and again, aiming to crack the skull of a purple with her club. One of the purple’s meets her challenge and swings his sword in a huge arc, aiming to cut Remele’s club in two. The sword sinks deep into the wood of the club, but it's not enough to cut it in half or stop the momentum of the weapon. Once again, the club slammed against the purple's head and you heard a sickening crack as the highblood collapses to the ground. 

You see Remele’s eyes flick to the other purple’s from but he’s already moving. His spear thrusts out, aiming to punch Remele’s through her stomach and skewer her. Remele twists her body to the side, but it’s not enough to entirely dodge the strike and the spearhead knicks her stomach, sending forth a splash of cerulean. Remele dances out of the way of the purple’s follow up strike, but you can tell that the blow she had just suffered was getting to her. Her movements were becoming sloppier and the purpleblood easily dodged every swing of her weapon. He thrusts his spear again, but Remele manages a sloppy parry and knocks the weapon off course. 

The highblood works with the force of the parry and snaps the end of his spear out in a quick sweep, aiming for her neck. Remele is too slow to dodge and is thrown off her feet by the force of the butt slamming into her. She manages to stop her head from cracking against the pavement at the price of tossing away her club, but you didn’t know if it mattered. The prupleblood had already brought his spearhead back in front of him and stared down at Remele, ready to stab his weapon through her body and into the ground. He waits for a second, letting a cocky grin fill in his face as he begins to taunt Remele. 

You can't make out his words in your scuttlebuggy, but you knew he wouldn't trash talk for long. Your vision tunnel and your fingers tighten around the wheel of your scuttlebuggy. You had to act. She was going to get culled if you didn’t do something. You put the scuttle buggy in reverse and back up, before slamming it back into drive, hitting the gas, and cutting the wheel hard to right. The purpleblood was apparently done savoring his victory, his mouth having stipped moving, but the roar of your sucttlebuggy causes him to pause his thrust and look up just in time to see it before it crashes into him. 

You see the look of victory replaced on his face replaced with one of raw panic as you collide with him, and you grit your teeth as your jerk forward in your seat, glad to have a seatbelt. 

The purpleblood goes flying back, the impact of your blow lifting his feet off the ground and sending him back to crash into Remele’s studio. You see his body go limp when his head whips back into the wall, but you still wait for a second, making sure he's not about to stand up. again. 

He doesn't. Apparently being run down by a scuttlebuyy was enough to keep even a purpleblood down. 

Mallek: = your shit okay?  
Mallek: remele;?  


Remele staggers to her feet, tossing an appreciative look your way. She starts to limp towards you and you notice that she is covering the wound on her stomach with her hand. She yanks open the scuttlebuggy and collapses into the seat. 

Remele: We have to ditche this fucking scuttlebuggy.   
Remele: You can’t keepe it.  


She closes the door and as soon as she does, and then you’re speeding off. Your mind races as you drive. You just participated in the culling of three highbloods in broad moonlight and the last thing you needed to be doing was hanging around. 

Mallek: lets get out of here first;  
Mallek: my hive != not close  
Remele: Yeah, whatevere but you have to ditche it at some point.  
Mallek: i know  
Mallek: but its got a bunch of my shit in it;  
Mallek: if i leave it somewhere; they can find me;  
Remele: Ditch it in front of a construction drone.  
Remele: It’ll destroy it if it’s not moving.  
Mallek: what;? why;?  
Remele: They’re clearing the streets of anything the purples left.  
Remele: If it’s there, they’re going to destroy it and get it out of the way.  


You take a quick look down at the wound that she was covering with her hand. You didn’t know how bad it was, and you doubted she would tell you. 

Mallek: can you even walk;  
Remele: Yeah. This isn’t as bad as it looks.  
Remele: I’ve had worst.  


You didn’t know her well enough to tell if she was lying, but even if you did you were still too hopped up the recent battle to focus on it. It didn’t look like she was bleeding out in your scuttlebuggy, so that was good enough for you. Mallek: youre not getting paid;  
Mallek: youre lucky i need you;  
Remele: Whatever, I don’t care.  


You note, with no small amount of irritation, that you had essentially already paid her. Mallek: fuck you by the way;  


Remele snickers, but doesn’t reply. 

___________________________________________________________________________ 

You ditch the car around a mile away from your hivestem, right in front of a construction drone clearing a particularly barricaded stretch of road. The two of you then walk as quickly as possible back to your hivestem. Remele winces as the speed, but you refuse to slow down. You weren’t the most vindictive troll in the world, but losing your scuttlebuggy and getting played as hard as you did left you with little sympathy. You want to blame it all on her, but you know that you should have seen this coming. Trusting a troll as notorious as Remele was bound to have drawbacks, and you knew the situation was sketchy, but you did it anyway. 

Remele: Where the fuque are we going?  
Remele: Is your hive really over here?  
Mallek: its = in the hivestem;  
Mallek: i have a penthouse;  
Remele: Did the drones not love you enough to make you your own hive or something?  
Mallek: least i have a hive to go back to;   


Remele goes silent and for a moment, you think you might’ve pushed the envelope a little too far. Instead, she throws back her head and cackles, a grin lighting up on her face. 

Remele: There’s the energy I’m looking for! You were looking like a mopey barkbeast.  


You give her a rude gesture in reply and her grin just grows wider. 

You stop in front of the hivestem and you take a quick look inside to guarantee that there were no lingering trolls at the bottom level. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t care, you had hacked every single camera in the entire structure, but if another troll caught saw Remele limping and Trapezing around drenched in blood, they'd flip their shit. Thankfully, the coast is clear, and you prop open the door and gesture for Remele to follow. 

You pause once again outside of your door and count yourself lucky for having a whole floor to yourself. You turn to Remele and fix her with a hard stare. She is purposely annoying you in favor of examining her nails. You almost can’t believe that you had come across a troll as combative and snide as Remele. Even with a hole in her stomach, she still gave off an air of self-assured confidence and smugness. 

Mallek: do not harass my other guests;  
Mallek: youre working with them; not against them;  
Mallek: you owe me;  
Remele: Whatever, can we just go in so I can get rid of all this blood?  


You run a hand through your hair and tug it gently as you look for your next words. 

Mallek: youre fine;  
Mallek: if you were going to die; youd have done it by now;  
Mallek: listen;  
Mallek: i am impressed; you do good work;   
Mallek: culling purplebllods like nothing;? that = good shit;  
Mallek: but youre not getting out alone;   
Mallek: and im sure you dont want to get culled;  
Mallek: i dont either;  
Mallek: so work with me;  


Remele perks up when you compliment her and lazily nods. 

Remele: Whatevere, let me go in so I can stop myself from bleeding.  


Mallek: do not fuck me over;  
Mallek: i will cull you if i have to;  


Remele looks at you intensely and for a second you wonder if she’s going to hit you. 

Remele: Message received.  


You unlock the door and let yourself in, gesturing for Remele to follow. 

Mallek: first aid stuff = in the mealblock in the cabinet under the sink; this way; first go wash that off;  


You hear her footsteps trudging behind you and you hope that Tyzias and Stelsa weren't in your mealblock. You were trying to sell confidence and showing up with a bleeding troll who was supposed to be their guardian wouldn’t do you any favors. You go in and see Tyzias filling her mug with water at your sink. You freeze in place, mentally preparing yourself for the argument that was about to happen. 

Remele emerges from behind you and heads straight for your first aid kit. 

Tyzias's eyes widen as she spots Remele, the amount of blood, and her general disposition. She then immediately wheels back to give you a scathing look. Remele seems to recognize her as well, and shoots her a toothy a grin as she stops in front of her, hand still covering her wound. 

Remele: Hey could you get the first-aid kit out of there.  
Remele: Gotta patch myself up from fighting with fuqueing purple bloods.  
Tyzias: are you fucking serious?  
Tyzias: mmmmallek wwwwhat the fuck? you hired remele?  


Oh fuck. You knew that Tagora had a lawsuit going against her, knew that she had quite a few going against her, but you had no idea Tyizas was involved. Then you remember something very, very important you forgot and you want to punch past you for his stupidity. Of course, she knew. They worked in the same fucking bookhive. 

Remele: Ohhhh are you a fan of my work?   
Remele: I’ll give you an autograph if you give me the fist-aid kit, bending over hurts like a bitch.  


Tyizas eyes dart down to where Remele’s hand was and she threw her head in the hand not holding her mug. 

Tyzias: you’re lucky that i don’t want you to die on the floor  


Your eyes widen slightly in surprise. You had never heard that amount of venom in Tyzias’s voice. Even when she had first woken up in your hive. She crouches out and pulls out the small kit, handing to Remele and giving her a harsh look. Remele rolls her eyes and takes the kit, before limping over to your table. 

Remele: Don’t worry, the only trolls who are going to get culled are the ones who get in our way.  


Tyizas ignores her and turns back to look at you. A beat of silence passes between the two of you as she stares you down, and you give first, looking off to the side awkwardly. 

Tyzias: i wwwwant to talk to you alone  
Tyzias: nnnnnow  


You give a casual shrug and turn back to look at her. 

Mallek: yeah that = cool;  
Mallek: lets do it;  


Tyzias stalks off in the direction of your recerationblock and you trail behind her slowly. You look at Remele and see her pulling things out of the first-aid kit, preparing to patch herself up. Her movements were smooth and self-assured, and you had a feeling that this was not her first time doing this. You look down to her now uncovered wound and wince at the sight. You couldn’t tell if it just looked bad or it truly was bad with her shirt still on, but the staggering amount of blood around it didn’t do much for your confidence. Remele look self-assured though, and you decide that if she wasn’t going to worry about it, then you wouldn’t either. 

Mallek: remember to not bleed on my floor;  


Remle waves her hand at you dismissively, and you finally exit the mealblock and start walking towards your recreationblock. You hope that it was only Tyzias waiting in there. With her, you could get a word in edgewise and maybe even convince her to be supportive. You weren’t so sure you could make that happen with Stelsa. You enter the room and see Tyzias standing straight at her full height, her arms crossed in the center of the room. She looks ready to tear into you, but you still can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief at the lack of Stelsa. 

Tyzias: wwwwhat the fuck happened?  
Tyzias: and wwwwhy the hell did you think hiring remele was a good idea  


Tyizas’s voice is icy, and her eyes bore into your own, demanding an answer. 

Mallek: we ran into trouble with some highbloods;  
Mallek: got away though; no need to freak out;  


Tyzias’s eyes narrow further and you can instantly tell that she doesn’t believe you. She lets a moment of quiet stretch out between the two of you, silently beckoning you to elaborate further. She was unlike Stelsa in that way. She used silence and pauses as her weapons, gathering more information from what you didn’t say than from what you did. 

You start to feel like you might have gotten yourself in over your head. 

Tyzias:that’s it?  
Tyzias:howwww did the highbloods find you  
Tyzias: you’re mmmmmeeting towards into a fight and i know you don’t like fighting  
Tyzias: wwwwhich means you were forced  


You try to not let your body language betray just how on the mark she was. Tyzias takes a long drink from her mug, her eyes still never leaving yours, and you feel the pressure on you grow. You didn’t want to look away first, but meeting her eyes was becoming more and more difficult. 

Mallek: i wasnt really forced;  
Mallek: remele handled the fight mostly;  
Mallek: culled three purplebloods alone and only got nicked; she walked the whole way back;  
Mallek: i hired her because shes good;  
Mallek: she knows how to get out; how to fight; she owes me now too;  


Tyzias raises her eyebrows and cocks her head to the side in question. Her posture starts to sag into her normal hunch, but you’re pretty sure it was less of a gesture of surrender and more one of victory. 

Tyzias: nice pivot  
Tyzias: nowwwww what actually happened Tyzias: i knowwww you’re lying  


Her eyes are still boring into yours and you finally tear your own away, looking off to the side. You could keep lying, but it might hurt more than it helped at this point. If Stelsa and Tyzias didn’t trust you and they didn’t trust Remele, the chance of any of them getting out alive dropped massively. 

You just needed to admit that you lost. Tyzias had gotten you, she probably knew what happened, and was only pressing you to make a point and fill out details. You don’t know why you underestimated the teals intelligence. She had been flying under the radar for her whole life and was training to be a lagistlator. Your eyes dart back in the direction of the mealblock, checking if Remele was listening in or approaching. You had to manage this carefully. You needed everyone to work together, not cull each other. You especially didn’t want Remle to hear you or Tyizas criticizing her. You had seen how she reacted to compliments and had a feeling that critique would evoke the exact opposite reaction. 

Mallek: alright;  
Mallek: she was stuck in her studio;  
Mallek: i helped bust her out;  
Mallek: rest is true; im not lying;  


Tyzias takes another drink and deflates further and you're glad you didn't need to explain further. Leaving out a few details wouldn't hurt anyone. 

Tyzias: that figures  
Tyzias: so she lied to you, made you fight, and now you want us to go with her?  
Mallek: yes;  


Tyzias looks curiously at you and reaches up to scratch at the back of her neck. She lets out a long sigh but still doesn’t say anything. You wonder if she was trying to collect her thoughts, or if this was another use of weaponized silence. If it was, it wasn’t going to work this time. You had nothing else to say. Tyzias: tell stelsa  


Fuck. You were hoping that this wouldn’t go this way. Really hoped that Tyzias would tell her matespirt and spare you the lecture. 

Mallek: fine;  
Mallek: if you want me to i will;  
Mallek: where is she; lets get this shit over with;  
Tyzias: in your abultiontrap, she’s cleaning up  
Mallek: ill talk to her when shes done;  


Tyzias simply shrugs, and drinks from her mug. You look awkwardly at the exit then turn around to leave, intent on checking on Remele and starting to put together a plan. Just as you leave, you hear Tyziaz’s voice calling out to you. 

Tyzias: tell remele i want to talk to her  


You pause for a brief second. She seriously wanted to talk to Remele, knowing she was still covered in blood? You almost ask, but instead, you keep moving. Tyzias didn't seem like the type to forget a detail as obvious as that. She just didn't care. 

You go into the mealblock just in time to see Remele finishing bandaging her wound. Her shirt is gone, leaving her in just her bra. You do your best not to let your gaze linger on her chest and instead look at the floor, examining the various pieces of blood-soaked gauze and bandages littering it along with her shirt. You look back at her, taking note of the veritable decoration of dark bruises that decorated her abdomen, standing in stark contrast to the bright white bandages. 

Remele: Eyes are up here loverboy.  


The amusement is obvious in her tone, but you can feel your cheeks heating up anyway. You meet her eyes and see her looking smugly at you. You shake your head quickly, forcing away the blush, and focus on what you came in to ask her in the first place. 

Mallek: how bad is it really;?  
Mallek: how long is going to take to heal;?  
Remele: I don’t knowe, probably a pedigree or something.  
Remele: It’s not that bad.  


You sigh and twirl an earring around a finger. You couldn’t tell if she was lying, but even if she was, what were you going to do about it? Ideally, it wouldn’t even matter. The idea was for everyone to get out of Trashthrust and to Zebede’s hive quietly, with as little violence as possible. You’re starting to get the sense that that particular wish is never going to happen though.  


Mallek: okay;  
Mallek: tyzias wants to talk to you;  
Mallek: she = in my recreationblock;  


You almost add that she should put on a shirt, but you choose to omit the comment. No need to bring it up. Remele gives you a playful wink, then struts out the door without another word. You guess she wasn't concerned about all the blood she was tracking all over your hive either. As soon as she’s out of your sight, you bury your head in your hands, taking a deep breath. 

Mallek: why me;  
Stelsa: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHY YOU YOU SHOULD KNOW THE ANSWER FOR THAT EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPEN SO FAR HAS HAD A LOT TO DO WITH YOU AND DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT THE STATE OF YOUR ABULTIONBLOCK IT IS DISGRACEFUL HOW COULD YOU EVEN-  


You let out a louder groan. Of course, Stelsa was walking down the stairs just as you said that. Why would you expect the world to function any differently? You begin to prepare yourself for at least an hour of the lecture as you explain the situation, but suddenly, you’re hit with a stroke of brilliance. 

You cut Stelsa off and call out to her yourself. 

Mallek: your matesprit wants to talk to you;  
Mallek: shes in the recreationblock; its about the troll i hired; theyre both in there now; you should join them;  


Stelsa stops talking, but you hear her footsteps getting closer. A few seconds later, she is rounding around the corner, looking at you doubtfully. She’s wearing the same outfit that she had been when you first kidnapped her, and by the looks of things, she had taken it upon herself to launder it as well. Honestly, you’re amazed that she wasn’t chewing you out for the piles of dirty laundry you kept in your luandryblock. 

You try to look as nonchalant as possible, doing your best to sell what you had just said to her. You desperately want her to take the bait. Nothing would make you happier than getting one over on both Remele and Tyzias, especially after the day you had and especially considering the current state of Remele. Sure, Stelsa would come for you next once she was done with the two trolls in the other room, but you were hoping that she would burn out most of her anger on them first. 

Stelsa: FINE   


You restrain from making a whoop of victory and instead grin quietly to yourself as she turns around and walks purposely for your recreationblock. You dash upstairs before the yelling can start, and slip on your headphones moments after Stelsa’s voice picks up. You didn’t know how long the three trolls would talk, but you figured you’d use the time to devise a more robust exit strategy now that Remele was in your hive. 

You get lost in the work, pulling up images of the outskirts of the cities, tracking drone patrols, and following the massive amount of purpleblood posts on chittr. You figured there was another platform they were probably organizing their riots on, but you’d be damned if you knew what it was. If anything, it was probably something stupid enough that only a highblood could have invented, but somehow smart enough to keep all other castes out. Still, by the look of things, it seemed that Thrashthrust might not be a planned rioting target anymore and you could see why. The city had already been ravaged by both them and Trizza, and with no lowbloods to clean it up and most drones on culling duty, the city remained in pieces. Still, you could never predict hihbloods. Your orginal instict was to assume there would be more and, despite the destruction of the city, it was possible.  


You’re focused on drawing a map of your focused on overlaying your favorite escape route over an overlay of the city when you feel someone grab your shoulder. You jump to attention, and wheel around in your chair, only to see Remele standing there, looking curiously at your screens. 

She must've visted your abultionblock, because all the blood that once covered her was gone. You note that she also snatched your abultionrobe, which more than likely, meant she was doing laundry in your hive as well. Were you a doormat? It wasn't a thought you had ever had before, but currently, there were three trolls in your hive taking and using your shit without even asking, and you hadn't complained once. Sure, you were pretty sure cooperation was better, but at the same time, you couldn't help but question yourself. 

Remele: You seriously lefte me with those two so you could play around on your computers?  
Remele: Are you fuqueing serious?  
Mallek: its your plan of escape for tomorrow;  
Mallek: this = more important than arguing with tealbloods;  


Remele takes a closer look at all the information you had gathered and nods to herself. She then turns and, before you can stop her, is howling. 

Remele: Tealdydee and tealdydumb.  
Remele: Come here, hackerman has got our escape route.  


You throw your head in your hands and resist the urge to punch Remele across the room. Instead, you settle for looking up and into her eyes. 

Mallek: fuck you;  


She just grins. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

The further you get away from the caverns, the more the hard stone and clay give way to plants and softer ground. Before long, your environment has visibly changed as you grow closer and closer to entering a massive forest. You had seen it before, but only ever in pictures. It was something vague, something that existed out there. Seeing it person was far different than any picture. Rather than looking serene and calm, it was as if all the hostile flora and fauna were riled up and were only waiting for the perfect moment to strike. 

Folykl is silent on your back, her stream of complaints drying up after only thirty minutes of walking. You think she probably could have gone on for longer, but thirty minutes of non-stop bitching seemed to be her upper limit, and you note the information in the back of your head, storing it away for later. Once you enter the forest it doesn't take long for the light of Alternia’s moons partly being blotted out by the tops of trees. You carefully pull Bronya’s map out of your pocket and squint at it, feeling suddenly unsure without the full force of the moon's light. It seems like you’re going the right way, but Bryona was no artist and it takes you a minute or two to piece everything together. 

Folykl: whats wrong?  


The bitchiness that had been present in Folykl’s since you had last heard it was gone, and she sounded on edge. 

Marsti: I’m just checking the map -_-  
Marsti: Don't want to get off track and get lose -_-  


You fold the map back up, slip it back into your pocket, and continued walking, confident that at the very least you were going the right way. Folykl doesn’t calm down though, and after ten minutes of walking without her relaxing at all, you’re starting to get worried. 

Folykl: we’re fucking being tracked  


Folykl’s voice comes out in a hiss in your ear and you nearly almost stumble in surprise. You force your legs to stop locking up and manage to keep pace as you try to glance around yourself as subtly as possible. 

It feels like an exercise in futility. The tall trees and foliage prevent you from seeing more than ten meters ahead of yourself and the low level of light in the forest made everything that extra bit harder. 

Marsti: How do you know? -_____-  
Folykl: i keep seeing glimpses of energy   
Marsti: Is it a cholerbear or something? Or is it-  
Folykl: it’s fucking trolls  
Folykl: i can tell  


Your heart sinks. You desperately want to believe that it’s just scared lowbloods, but you know that can’t be true. Scared lowbloods wouldn’t follow you. 

Marsti: How many are there? -_-  
Marsti: Can you tell? -_-  
Folykl: no not yet  
Folykl: i can only barely catch the fuckers  
Folykl: but there has to be more than one  
Folykl: i keep seeing them too far apart for it to be one troll  


You force yourself to keep your pace steady as your wrack your pan for options. You wonder if they were able to see you right now. The forest was so dense you couldn’t imagine how, but if they were trailing you they must have figured something out. 

Marsti: How far away can you see -_-  
Folykl: what the hell?  
Folykl: that’s a weird as shit question i can see just as far as you  
Marsti: How far are they then -_-  
Folykl: i don’t know   
Folykl: far enough that they look kinda small still  


Your eyes dart around, searching fruitlessly for the rouge trolls. 

Marsti: Fuck -_-  
Marsti: Should we hide? -_-  
Marsti: Will that work -_-  
Folykl: i don’t fucking know maybe?  
Folykl: i’m not a mindreader i don’t know how t he hell their following us to begin with  


You wish you could move faster, you might have avoided getting caught if you did, but carrying Folykl and all your supplies cut you speed down by almost half your typical pace. You think about running but immediately dismiss the idea as soon as it comes. Where would you even run to? You had no idea where you were and whoever was tracking you clearly either had the tech or the knowledge to stay on your trail. You reach down, feeling for the knife strapped to your leg. You hope you don’t have to pull it out. You don’t want to fight. You hadn’t wanted to fight in the caverns when you had the advantage, and you especially didn’t want to fight now when the opposite was true. 

Folykl: they’re back  
Folykl: they’re getting closer fast  


Your bloodpusher picks up and your hand shoots down to the knife strapped to your thigh. 

Marsti: How many and from where? -_-  
Folykl: there are two i-  


Folykl stops and you feel her twisting around on her back. 

Folykl: no  
Folykl: there are three  
Folykl: one is fucking behind us   
Folykl: two on t he sides  
Folykl: holy shit they’re moving fucking fast  


Your eyes dart around your surroundings and you pull your knife out. You would go down fighting if the came for you. You hated fighting, hated the blood, but you wouldn’t let yourself get culled now. Not when you’ve gotten so far. 

Folykl slides herself down your back, and pauses behind you, reaching out her hands to grab your shoulders. She jerks your shoulders to the right and you whip your head to follow her lead. A blur of motion catches your eyes, but you lose sight of it moments later. Their close, but still almost a hundred feet away. Folykl’s fingers dig into your shoulders and she whips you the left. This time, you get a better look at the approaching troll. They were tall and husky, but their movements were still incredibly swift. Their clothes were dark greens and browns, and you couldn’t tell what caste they were. They were around the same distance as the first, and you assumed the one behind you was around the same distance. 

You hear a thump behind you and look down to see Folykl’s bag lying on the ground. 

Folykl: we go  
Folykl: towards the big one i dont think they know we see them   
Folykl: go slowly first the closer we are the easier it is to see them  
Folykl: than sprint  


She scrambles onto your back again and leans down to hiss in your ear, emphasizing her previous words. 

Folykl: go  


You take up a brisk pace, heading for the last place you saw the troll stalking you. You want so badly to look behind you, to check on the other trolls, but you kept your head firmly forward. You didn’t want to give anything away, didn’t want to give the trolls hunting you any more signals to what you might know. 

Folykl: in the bushes  
Folykl: fifty feet   
Folykl: the other ones are close  


You tense your muscle, preparing to run, but Folykl digs her fingers into your shoulder and squeezes tight. You get the message and force yourself to keep the same pace. They have to notice what you’re doing now, but you defer to Folykl. You didn’t want to fuck this up and you trusted Folykl. Trusted her more than you probably should. 

Folykl: bush to the left the big one   
Folykl: it's right next to the tree  


Her fingers are still tight on your shoulders, and you try to spot the bush she was talking about. Your eyes must brush across the right spot because Folkly’s hand releases your shoulders and her breath hisses in your ear. 

Folykl: now  


You take off running, heading right to the bush and a tall, stocky troll raises from it at the same time. You still can’t tell what caste they were, but judging by the way they were lifting their hand to their head, you would get they were a cobalt. You dive for them as far as you can with Folykl on the back, our knife stretching out seeking somewhere to strike, hoping to bring the troll down with you. He’s too quick though and takes a step back, opting for a short retreat to focus on his psionics. You land in a heap in a bush, only a few inches from the troll. You see his hand reaches his head and you feel a cold dread wash over you. You would die if here if he controlled you. 

You raise your knife above your head and stab as hard into the ground as you can, doing your best to approximate where the cobalt’s foot might be. Your knife buries itself into something resistant and you press it in ass deeply as possible, unwilling to give up. 

The cerulean lets out an unearthly scream and you let a bolt of satisfaction corse through you, you had gotten him. Before you can look up and see rather than just hear his reaction, you see a boot flying towards your face. Folykl rolls off of your back, but the kick is coming too soon and it smashes into your face. The blow has you reeling and your head whips back as far it can. Your teeth shift around in your mouth, and your vision darkens, but you know you can’t get hit in the head again, not if you want to save your pan. You roll to the right and haul yourself to your feet, eyes immediately searching for your enemy. 

Folykl had managed to tackle him to the ground herself, and you see her hands on the side of his face with her thumbs dug deeply into both of his eyes, blinding and destroying the organs. The cerulean must have a decent level of psionics though, because Folykl’s draining hardly shakes him. He manages to dig his arms under Folykl’s chest and hurl her to the side and off. You don’t wait for her to hit the ground, and rush forward, swinging your own foot back and kicking at his ribs. Your attack lands and you feel something shattering beneath your boot as the cobalt lets out another vicious howl of pain. You bring your entire leg back and kick at the same spot again, every ounce of your viciousness and fear in the blow. 

More bones shatter beneath your kick and the troll beneath you lets out another sickening cry. The sound of it makes you gut churn horribly, but you push down the feeling. You couldn’t focus on it now. 

Out of nowhere, a burst of white-hot pain blooms near your own ribs and you collapse to the ground. You hear someone screaming your name, but you can’t focus. Your vision tunnels and you try to climb to your feet, but before you can, another burst of pain racks your body and you fully collapse. You clutch the wound with your hand and feel wetness under your fingers. With a sudden clarity, you realize you’ve been shot. 

You feel someone wrapping you up in their arms and trying to drag you, but you can’t fight against it or help. You’re just deadweight. Slowly, you grasp the fact that you’re dying. Dying in a forest in the middle of nowhere, culled by some troll who was hunting you like a piece of prey. Your eyelids feel heavy, and you can no longer fight the temptation to let them slide shut. The pleasing veneer of darkness greets you, and the pain resonating all throughout your body seems to fade slightly. You feel like you’re floating outside of yourself, and soon you’d entirely float way. 

Someone keeps screaming your name and trying to move you. But you can barely hear them, all of their words sound like mere gibberish. You let out a weak laugh that quickly turns into a series of heaving, wet coughs. You force yourself to fight it back down. You wouldn’t die coughing your lungs out. Instead, you settle down in the arms of whoever was holding you, and let yourself drift off. ____________________________________________________________ 

Everything hurt. It felt like every spare ounce of energy you possessed had been brutally torn from you. As if you spent an entire sweep awake, sleeping on hard stone without any sopor. You force your eyes open and squint against the low light you encounter. You try to lift your head, but everything feels too heavy. You know you could do it if you tried, know you could force it, but you can barely think right now. You wonder if Folykl is okay, if you felt this bad then she- 

Folykl wasn't touching you. The draining was gone. 

Holy shit Folykl was gone. 

You still can’t lift your head, the world is still too heavy, but you force yourself to turn it, searching the room for Folykl, the panic coursing through you giving you a twisted sort of strength. Everything was blurry, but you were in some sort of cave, with tall metal bars locking you inside of a cell. The room was illuminated by a few low-level lights, casting shadows everywhere. You don’t see anyone stand outside of your cell, so you turn your attention elsewhere, forcing your eyes open all the way to stare at the ceiling above you. Ragged stone looks back at you. You're not sure what you expected. 

You’re head still feels like it’s full of sopor, but you slowly put all the details together. You were in some sort of prison, captured by whatever trolls were hunting you. They hadn't killed you, which meant they wanted something else from you. What that something was you didn't know, but it hardly mattered right now. 

You weakly raise your hands and run them over your body, instantly noticing that your gloves are absent. You wince as your hands trace over fresh bruises. They reach your ribs and you feel a mix of bandages and your own skin. Whatever trolls had captured had cut your shirt in half, and then for some inexplicable reason, patched you up. You poke lightly at both injuries and are surprised to find that they don’t feel as tender as you thought they might. You were positive you something had shot you, and that that something had been more than enough to make you bleed, but the wounds didn’t feel like that. Either whoever patched you up did a damn good job or you were shot with something non-lethal. Given the lack of bed or any comfort in your cell, you assumed it was the latter. 

You take stock of the rest of your clothes and notice that everything else was in place except for your goggles. You feel an odd sense of anger that their disappearance. They meant something to you, you liked the goggles, and some stupid highblood has taken it away. Still, the knowledge that you’re not dead, and that you were probably going to be okay, at least for now, combined with your will to find Folykl, gives you the strength to focus. 

You take a deep breath, gathering your strength and then force your head off the ground. A wave of dizziness come over you, but moving one part of you somehow made it easier to move the others, and ever so slowly, you sit up. As soon as you manage to sit up all the way, another wave of nausea overcomes you. You hunch over, dry heaving, but after what feels like forever, but was probably only a minute at best, you stop. 

You look out between the bars of your prison and sight a well-worn trail snaking up and out of the cave your cell was in. You wondered how big the cave system you were in actually was. You were in the middle of a forest after all, and you had left the jade caverns quite a while ago. 

You briefly entertained the idea that you had somehow gotten dragged all the way back, but force yourself to stop thinking about it. It was too unlikely. You know that you and Folykl had nearly killed one of the trolls hunting you and while whoever came after you were obviously vicious, you were pretty sure they weren’t “cull-a-cerulean-for-an-injury” vicious. 

Other than the path, there was nothing else of note in the cave. Had they simply left you here to die of thirst or hunger? Was that the plan? You could last at least a few days, but you knew Folykl wouldn’t be so lucky. The thought of feisty gold blood dying somewhere on the floor makes your bloodpusher wrench in a way you’re not familiar with. The two of you had gone through too much in the past few days. You wouldn’t let her die in some godforsaken cave. 

The sound of something striking the floor of the cave pulls you out of your brooding, and you crawl careful close to the bars of your prison to listen. The sound grows closer, and you’re able to identify it as footsteps. You knew it couldn’t be the troll you had taken down. These footsteps were far lighter, and if the cave didn’t echo every little noise, you were pretty sure you wouldn’t have even been able to notice. You scoot backs from the bars and sit down, crossing your legs in front of you and watch the area where the path disappears like a raptorbeast, a mixture of dread and excitement mixing inside of you. You wanted the opportunity to know more, to see the trolls who had done this to you. On the other hand, you had no idea if the troll simply planned on culling you or something else equally as horrifying. 

Another minute passes, and a lanky seadweller walks in, draped in skintight pants, a standard looking t-shirt, and a tight-fitting jacket, all in violet. The was completed with a cape being pulled along behind her. You look down at her boots and resist the urge to gag. Even they were covered in the violet color of her blood. Whoever this troll was they were either the most hardcore casteist you’d ever see or they were compensating for some perceived flaw harder than you’d ever seen. 

Neither case boded particularly well for you. 

She doesn’t look at you at first, merely ignoring your presence even she stopped only a few feet away from your prison. You keep yourself still and bite back the whole host of insults that were making themselves known to your pan. Antagonizing the seadweller who had you locked up in a prison was a bad idea, no matter how much you wanted to do it or how tacky her fashion sense was. 

Hours seem to slip away as the violetblood holds a stiff posture in front of your cell. The only sign of life that you were staring at a troll and not a hyper-realistic mannequin was the slight rise and fall of her chest. You wonder if she had done this before, or if this was the first time she had come to check on her prisoner. Truthfully, you had no idea how long you were out for. 

You look at her flaring gills and narrow your eyes. They were fish. That's all. Just a fish and you'd refer to them as such. They weren't royalty in your eyes. Just big fish. 

Fish: if,it,were,up,to,me,i,would,just,shoot,you,in,the,leg,and,leave,you,in,there,to,die  
Fish: you,have,no,idea,how,happy,that,would,make,me  


You blink in muted surprise at the sound of her voice. She over-enunciated every single word, in a voice that was high and squeaky, as if she was a squeakbeast that someone was crushing 

Fish: what  
Fish: nothing,to,even,say?  
Fish: are,you,a,fucking,retard,or,something?  
Marsti: How did you find us? -_-  


She quirks an eyebrow upwards, and honestly, you’re surprised that she didn’t immediately start yelling and telling you to shut up. You knew your comment was non-sequitur in the most obvious way possible, but you needed information. Sitting here and listening to how much she wanted to kill you and how much she hated lowbloods wouldn’t make anything better. 

Fish: you,know,what,ordinarily,i,wouldnt,tell,trash,like,you  
Fish: but,ill,do,it,just,this,once,because,i,love,the,reason  
Fish: a,jadeblood,got,into,contact,with,the,empire,and,wanted,to,strike,a,deal  
Fish: she,said,she,knew,about,some,lowbloods,who,were,running,through,the,caverns,and,killing,highbloods  
Fish: she,told,us,she,would,only,tell,us,who,they,were,if,the,empire,promised,to,leave,the,jades,out,of,any,war  
Fish: trizza,couldnt,give,a,shit,less,she,didnt,care,about,jades,in,the,first,place  
Fish: she,did,care,that,a,bunch,of,gutterblood,trash,was,running,around,culling,though  
Fish: makes,me,all,too,happy,to,know,that,even,midbloods,think,trash,like,you,needs,to,be,put,down  


You didn’t need to ask the name of jadeblood. You knew instantly who it was. Lynera had fucking sold you out. Sold you to the empire, all for some hollow guarantee from Trizza of all trolls. You grind your teeth together in frustration and resisted the urge to pull out your hair. You couldn't fucking believe it. 

The fishfuck took your reaction to be frustration at her taunts and jeers, but she couldn’t be more wrong. You couldn’t give a damn less about what a bloodthirsty highblood had to say. It was nothing you haven't seen before. You were pissed because you had gotten played and you hadn't even seen it coming. You resist snorting at the thought. She had gotten played almost as hard as you had, but she was acting like everything was going her way. 

Fish: im,going,to,enjoy,seeing,you,culled  
Fish: trizza,has,plans,for,you  


You. You. You. Always singular. She wasn’t mentioned Folykl. Did that mean she was dead? Had she already gotten culled? You couldn’t fight your curiosity. You needed to know. 

Marsti: What am I the only troll slotted to be culled? -_-  
Marsti: Trizza only wanted me? -_-  


The violetblood through back her head and let out one the harshest and trillest noise you’d ever hear. You know that it must just be how she laughs, but it sounds more like nails dragging across a window.The sounds makes you wince in irritation, but the violetblood is too busy cackling to notice. Subtly, you begin to flex the rest of your muscles and give an internal sigh of relief as they all respond appropriately. The more you moved your body, the more you talked, the easier it was to do things. The earlier weakness was there, and the pain had far from faded, but the fact that you weren’t dead and were regaining your energy was giving you a second wind. In a fucked up sort of way, being kidnapped had given you a reprieve from your journey, with the unfortunate addition of pain. 

Fish: youre,not,special  
Fish: no,one,told,us,that,pissblood,had,voidrot,otherwise,shed,get,dragged, all,the,way,to,trizza,too  
Fish: though,finally,getting,culled,from,it,like,she,should,have,been,is,good,enough,for,me  
Fish: i,heard,it,hurts,and,i,want,to,watch,it,happen  
Fish: she,deserves,it,for,culling,highbloods,and,espeically,for,trying,to,kill,my,blood,brother  
Fish: not,you,didnt,both,deserve,every,litte,fucking,thing,that,will,happen,to,you,before,its,just,far,more,personal,now  
Fish: if,he,dies,than,i,will,personally,ensure,that,your,culling,is,the,most,painful,in,alternian,history  


You freeze. This was it. This was your in. You can’t stop yourself from blurting out your next words. 

Marsti: I’m a medic -_-  
Marsti: I can look at him, see what’s wrong. Stop him from dying -_-  


The violetblood sneers at you, her eyes flashing in disgust and rage as if you were suggesting she pull out and eat her own bloodpusher.  


Fish: as,if,i,would,ever,need,a,lowbloods,help,him,i,already,sent,someone,else,to,get,help  
Fish: maybe,if,you,were,a,more,civilized,troll,and,werent,running,around,in,the,middle,of,fucking,nowhere,it,wouldnt,be,a,problem,at,all,but,of,course,you,cant,help,but,run,like,the,trash,you,are  
Fish: how,the,fuck,would,gutterblood,trash,like,you,know,anything,about,healing,anyway?  
Fish: the,records,all,say,you,just,cleaned,up,after,purpleblood,concerts  


You force yourself to remain calm and fight down the surge of rage that was threatening to seep its way into your actions. You couldn’t argue. You had to stay on focus. You couldn’t let this opportunity go. It was clear at this point that she was just here to taunt and antagonize you. You couldn’t let her get to you. 

Marsti: I broke his ribs -___-  
Marsti: A lung might be punctured and he’s bleeding out -_-  
Marsti: I can check for that, tell you what to do -_-  
Fish: shut,the,fuck,up,pissblood  
Fish: youre,so,lucky,trizza,wants,to,make,an,example,of,you,or,id,cull,you,where,you,stood  


This wasn’t going how you needed it to. She wasn’t listening. She was still too focused on your being a lowblood. You needed to press her. Change the playing field. She might not care about her ally, but you knew that at the very least, she was watching out for number one. 

Marsti: How is Trizza going to feel when she finds out you let your battle brother die and that a lowblood did it? -_-  
Marsti: Someone is going to find out -_-  
Marsti: And who is she going to blame? -_-  


She whips around and snarls at you, striding up to your cell and glowering down at you. 

Fish: how,dare,you,talk,to,me,like,that,you,fucking,piece,of,shit,im,going,to-  


She freezes, and stares hard at you, her eyes raking up and down your body. She seems to find some sort of interesting train of thought and pursues it. Slowly the disdainful look rolls off her place and is replaced by one of sadistic glee. 

Fish: actually,you,know,what,ill,let,you,beg,me,to,serve,the,empire  
Fish: maybe,the,empire,will,make,your,death,quicker,if,you,do  


All she wanted you to do was degrade yourself? Seriously? Was this fishfuck so out of touch that she thought begging to highbloods hadn’t been something you’d had to do before? Sure, you hadn’t done it in sweeps, but it wasn’t like you were unfamiliar with the concept. 

Marsti: Please -_-  
Marsti: Please let me serve the empire -__-  
Marsti: I’m just stupid fucking gutterblood trash -____-  
Marsti: I should have known my place, I should’ve been better. I’m pathetic, I’m not even worthy to grovel in front of you -_________-  
Marsti: Please allow me to save my superior -_________________________-  


The violetblood grinned wider and she raised a finger, giving you a come hither gesture. You scoot closer, figuring that you at least had to dance a little to get what you wanted. 

Fish: you,make,a,decent,case,for,trash,like,yourself  
Fish: so,i,will,make,an,exception,if,you,sacrifice,something,else,to,prove,your,true,devotion,to,the,empire  
Fish: gouge,out,an,eye,and,i,will,give,you,the,mercy,of,serving,your,betters,before,you,are,culled  
Marsti: Gouge it out with what? -_-  


The fish gives an exasperated groan and rolls her eyes. 

Fish: you,have,ten,prongs,dont,you?  
Fish: figure,it,out  


You go silent and look down at your hands. There was a tightness in your chest that you had never felt before like something was crushing you. You liked your eyes, both of them, but you knew you could go without one. It wouldn’t make it impossible to get to Zebede’s hive. In fact, of all the parts of you, she could have chosen to destroy it was certainly one of the better ones. Still, the idea of destroying your own eye completely for the amusement of a highblood made your blood boil at the same time as making you want to vomit. 

You knew you were going to do it though. It was your only hope. She was planning on culling you anyway. An eye for even a one percent chance of survival was worth it. Slowly, you bring your pointer and middle prong together, forcing them straight. You take a look up at the fish, only to see her head cocked to the side, a sharp style showing all of her teeth adorning your face. You look back down at your fingers, taking a closer look at your nails, and nod to yourself. They should be long enough to make this quick. 

You exhale, and before you can stop yourself, promptly shove your fingers into your right eye. You feel your nails pierce it, but you keep going, forcing your fingers deeper, attempting to dig it out of your face. You suppress any cry of pain, making yourself quiet. Telling yourself that this would be quick. 

And it was. 

You can’t see anything from your left eye anymore, and a constant thrum of sheer agony spreads from it to the rest of your face. Your hands are shaking at your look at your bloodsoaked fingers, and you bite back a curse. It was gone. You did it. 

You look up at the fish not bothering to stop the blood running down your face. 

Marsti: Let me help -_-  


She howls with laughter, but her hand dug into her pocket anyway. She fishes out a key and your bloodpusher gives a jolt. 

Fish: alright,i,think,you,deserve,a,reward  


She shoves the key in the slot, and then she’s yanking the door of your prison open. 

Fish: get,up,its,time,to,put,your,money,where,your,mouth,is  


You shakily rise to your feet, the adrenaline of getting rid of your eye still rushing through you. You were getting out though. You had a chance. You shuffle out of the cell, pausing at the exit and looking at the fish. She points down the hall, her long nails glinting dangerously in the low light, 

Fish: walk,i,will,be,behind,you,to,tell,you,where,to,go  


You able forward, but truly, you’re just waiting for the violet to cut your throat. You were pretty sure she wouldn’t cull you until at least attempted to help her ally. So, you just walked, listening to her bark out orders, but mostly focusing on the layout of the cave. You were right in your initial assessments of it. It was small but long and suspected that if you kept walking for another minute, you’d reach the entrance. You only passed one other fork in the right of the path, one that you took particular note of. The fish said nothing about it but a small thrill came over you anyway. Folykl could be in there. She had 

Fish: next,passage,on,the,left  


Your good eye spots the area she’s talking about only around five feet away. You duck into it and immediately emerge into a room considerably more spacious than where you were being kept. Your eyes scan over the room, but you’re interrupted by a harsh shove behind you. You crash to ground on your knees, wincing out in pain as they strike the hard stone of the floor. 

Fish: dont,just,fucking,sit,there,go,help,him,dumbass  
Fish: cant,you,do,anything,right?  


It’s all you can do to not turn around and attempt to throttle the violet right there. At this point, you weren’t even sure if she was more interested in potentially saving her team members or torturing you. You rise to your feet, and then take a closer look at the troll you were supposed to be saving and the room he was in. 

He was passed out on a small cot sleeping deeply enough that your voices hadn’t stirred him. You huff in irritation at the fact. You’d have to wake him up. His cooperation was necessary if you were going to figure out what the hell you did to him. You glance around the rest of the room, trying to see what supplies you were working with. There was a small table where several standard looking first-aid like kits sat open. They looked to contain all the typical stuff, but you noticed a ton of pill bottles in one. You make note of it, before turning your attention back to the sleeping cerulean. Time to rouse him. 

Marsti: Hey, you need to wake up -_-  


He doesn’t stir. 

Marsti: It’ll make this easier -_-  


You try yelling out louder, but once again fail. The cerulean continues to sleep soundly and you sigh again. Truthfully, you weren’t sure what you were even expecting to happen, but now you’d have to do it the hard way. You reach out a hand and gently try to shake the troll awake, but he still doesn’t respond. You try again, harder this time, but he’s simply dead to the world. 

Fish: why,the,fuck,are,you,trying,to,wake,him,up?  


You bite your tongue as you put all the pieces together. He was obviously drugged and sedated, apparently enough that touch wouldn’t even rouse him. You want to tell the violet that’d it’d be better to wait until he’s awake to try and fix him up, but you know that’s not the answer you needed to give. Besides, you didn’t really give a shit about saving a troll explicitly sent to cull you. 

Fish: if,you,dont,start,doing,something,im,going,to,pluck,out,your,other,fucking,ganderbulb  


Well, it looked like your decision was made for you. 

You start doing the most you can, touching at his rubs, feeling for any signs of internal bleeding, everything you can to see what was wrong. After you’re done with your initial sweep, your return back to his ribs, gently probing the shattered bone and listening to his breathing. You’re not paying too much attention, but you suspect that your initial impression of a collapsed or slightly punctured lung seemed to be correct, you couldn't be sure though, couldn’t know how long he’d have until he died if he was even going to die from it in the first place. 

More concerning though, was how slow his heartbeat and breathing were. You bring your fingers up to his pulse point and press in, feeling for the familiar beats. You're again struck by just how slow it was. Way too slow. 

The entire time you work, you can feel the fish’s eyes boring into the back of your head, watching your every move. You force yourself to move slower, as you turn your attention back to the actual problem at hand. You needed a way to get rid of the fish. You knew taking her in a one-on-one fight would be absolute suicide, but you needed something. 

Your attention is drawn back to the cerulean choking when you press on a particular spot near his ribs. The violet manifests at your side, slapping your hand aside with far more force than necessary. 

Fish: what,the,fuck,are,you,doing,you,fucking,idiot  
Fish: are,you,just,killing,him?  


She whips around to look at you, then starts walking forward, forcing you to retreat back. You hadn’t realized just how tall she was, but now you were all too aware of it. She may not be as strong as a blueblood might be, but she could still tear you apart. 

Marsti: I’m trying to help him -_-  
Marsti: He’s not awake, I can’t ask him anything, but I still need to find out what’s wrong to save him, he’s going to die otherwise-_-  
Marsti: If I wanted to kill him I’d of done it already.  


You’re on the floor before you even register a new feeling of pain blooming across your face. You know that she just slapped you, but your pan is having trouble processing how hard she had. You thought that exaggerating the severity of his state would be enough of an incentive to not cull you, but now you weren’t so sure. You had pushed it with the last line, and now you were paying the price. 

Fish: dont,even,joke,about,that,you,fucking,piece,of,trash  
Fish: if,he,wasnt,going,to,die,i,would,tear,you,apart  
Fish: but,until,you,save,him,i,cant,so,get,,the,fuck,up,and,fix,him  


Okay, at least you had managed to convince her that it was serious. 

You climb to your feet, trying to keep your attention straight ahead as you racked your pan desperately for something to do. It’s not like you could do surgery on him right here, but short of that, there wasn’t much you can do. 

Marsti: What did you give him that knocked him out? -_-  
Marsti: What drug? -_-  
Fish: standard,militray,painkillers  
Fish: we,fed,him,the,bottle,because,of,how,much,pain,he,was,in,after,what,you,did,to,him  
Fish: why,the,fuck,would,it,matter?  
Marsti: I need to know if he’s going to stay asleep while I fix him -_-  
Fish: he, will  
Fish: so,fix,him  


Holy shit. She was actually buying it. 

Marsti: I need tools -_-  
Marsti: I can’t open him up without them. His ribs are pressing on his lungs and it’s choking him. I just need to get in and force them off. Then he’ll live. -_-  


A long moment of silence passes as the violetblood digests your bluff. You knew that the last thing she wanted to do was hand you anything that could be used as a weapon, but apparently seeing the cerulean choke from just a touch was enough to convince her. He must have been in enough pain before that she was willing to buy a lowbloods story. 

Fish: what,do,you,need  
Fish: if,you,want,a,fucking,knife,you,can,only,have,one  


You make no comment, but did she seriously think that you were going to duel-wield scalpels? No wonder she was taking your medical advice so readily, the most she probably knew about healing was getting into medicalizers. 

Marsti: Show me what you have -_-  
Marsti: I need a few things -_-  


She points to one of the kits sitting on the table but refuses to move beyond that. Which truly, is to be expected. You dig through the tools, eventually fishing out a pair of gloves, scalpels, bandages, and disinfectants. There were more things in there, but you didn’t know what have them did and it wasn’t like you were planning on actually doing surgery. You take a longer look at the gloves and decide that, if you ever got out of this, you would keep them. You wish there were a pair of goggles to make up for the loss of your favorite piece of apparel, but you didn’t see anything close. 

You sense the fish’s eyes burning into your harder than ever and you look up to see why. She is looking back and forth between you, and the long, sharp, and relatively large, scalpel you’ve pulled out. You wait for her to say something, to make some remark about you not needing it, but she remains silent. It seemed that she had brains enough to know that you needed to get into him somehow. Suddenly, your pan reminds you of the time that Folykl called you highblood dumb, and you feel more miffed at the comment now than you were back then. 

You walk over to the sink and wash your hands, then snap on the long gloves. Finally, you approach the sleeping cerulean once again and take a deep breath. You take a long look at the scalpel and come to your decision. 

You start to cut him open, carefully and with all the finesse of a troll who’s never done this in her life. You work slowly, carefully planning every action, but never freezing. You needed to sell this. Finally, a flash of bones reveals itself under the incision you’ve made, and a jolt of fear comes over you. It was almost time. 

You grasp a pair of tongs that you’re pretty sure you could grab the bones with, and make a show of having difficulty getting them in, even with the help of your scalpel. You don’t have to try too hard though, the incisions you made wasn’t the largest in the world, and trying to reach in, grasp the bone, while not messing around with anything else, was close to impossible. You hear the violetblood shuffling around behind you and steady yourself as much as possible. It was now or never. 

Marsti: I need you to help -_-  
Marsti: Hold him open so I can fix what I need -_-  


You know you had cut deep enough to see bone, but you didn’t honestly know if it was the right bone. It hardly mattered though. She didn’t either. Fish: why,the,fuck,should,i,go,anywhere,near,you?  
Fish: youre,the,doctor,here  
Marsti: I have two hands, I need more. I’m almost done, just hold him so I can fix it -_-  


She takes a step forward and you cringe to yourself. 

Marsti: Wash your hands and put on gloves -_-  
Marsti: He’ll get an infection if you don’t -_  
\- Fish: fuck,you,do,not,talk,to,me,like,that  


You nearly reply, but she walks over to the water bottle and soap you had used and does what you ask. Your hands nearly shake as you watch her. You had one shot at this. One. If you missed even slightly, it was over. Fuck, even if you hit, it might be over. 

She snaps on the gloves, then walks over standing awkwardly down at her ally. 

Marsti: Please, just hold this open so I can get this in -_-  


She gives you a questioning look but still obeys, hands reaching out to hold the incision open. You then carefully insert the tongs, feeling around for any piece of shattered bone. You find one and is to manipulate it with no particular direction in mind. Your scalpel is still stuck in the incision, but you carefully slip it out. 

You watch out of the corner of your eye to see if she notices, but her eyes are locked on your work, completely focused on your actions and keeping her own hands steady. You make your final choice in less than a half-second, and then your moving, abandoning the tongs inside of the cerulean and turning to face her as you bring the scalpel to bear. The angle is awkward because she’s too close to you, but her occupation with fulfilling your request and her proximity makes her too slow to react. You see her eyes widen, but then your scalpel is slicing across both of them, forcing them shut. You hope actually hit them. 

She lets out a primal scream and then her long, sharp nails are slashing across your own face. They cut in deep as if there were mall knives attached to her hands, and you scramble back clutching at your face while doing your best to keep in eye on your enemy. 

Fish: im,going,to,fucking,cull,you!!!  


Her shout is highlighted with a sudden lunge in your direction, but you throw yourself onto the floor out of the way and watch as she crashes into one of the counters of the room. She turns around, head whipping back and forth when you see bright violetblood running down her face originating from her eyes. A small sense of relief comes when you note that you had blinded her, or at least blinded her enough that she couldn’t locate you right now. 

You consider running now, simply grabbing Folkyl and hauling ass out of the cave, but you’re not sure you could escape without the violet catching up to you. You were too weak to drag Folykl out quickly anyway. 

You’d have to cull her. 

You notice too late that the room has gone nearly silent, the only sound filling it your heaving breaths and then the violetblood is diving on top of you albeit a few feet short. She sinks her nails into your back, and begins to haul herself up your body, keeping you pinned with her larger size. You scream as her nails tear deeply into your back and you stab the scalpel into her face, heedless of the target, and shove it in as deeply as possible. 

The fish doesn’t let go and you see her hands scrambling to find your throat and wrapping around it. She starts throttling you, shaking your head back and forth as you try to keep a grip on the knife, even as she crushes your neck. She screaming something, her voice shrill and obnoxious, but you can barely understand her. All you can focus on was your lack of air. 

The scalpel comes free of her face and you slash it at her wrists over and over again, trying to force her to let go. She maintains her grip and you feel your vision beginning to darken as the fight climbs out of your body. You weakly lift your hand, then aim for her throat thrusting forth with all your strength. YOu hit something and you keep digging, twisting the scalpel back and forth as it digs into her flesh. The violetblood's hands loosen around your throat, and it encourages you to slash harder, to dig deeper. 

Her hands leave your throat entirely, and the violet grabs your wrists, preventing you from making a more progress. You still feel weak, but you raise your other hand and punch at where her hands have gripped your wrists, intending to drive the knife deeper. 

It works, and her grip loosens, the loss of blood finally getting to her. You dig the scalpel in deeper, and you feel her grip loosen entirely as her arms fall away. She promptly collapses on top of you, the fight gone, as blood continues to gush out of her throat. 

You roll her off of you, taking in deep breaths as you merely lay on the floor taking it deep breaths. The first thing you notice when your panic subsides is that you’re absolutely soaked in violetblood. Your gloves and face are covered in the stuff. You didn’t even know a troll could bleed that much. 

You turn to look at the violetblood beside you, terrified that you would see that she was alive and staring at you, ready to cull you, but she’s still. Then the pain truly sets in and you squeeze your eyes shut as wave after wave of throbbing agony comes over you. You wonder if the marks on your back and face are going to scar. They certainly felt deep enough.Your head rolls to the direction of the exit and you gather yourself. You would need your energy to get Folykl out. To escape. The troll they sent away could be coming back at any time, and you need to be gone. 

Slowly, you rise to your feet and shuffle out of the room, heading to the only place you thought Folykl might be. You’re so fucking tired, but you wouldn’t let yourself stop now. Not until she was safe. Not until you had her back. You go into the passage you had passed earlier and hold your breath, hoping you were right. Much like the medicalblock, the room nearly instantly expands. However unlike the medicalblock, the room was entirely empty except for a single light on the ceiling and- 

Marsti: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck -_________________-  


Folykl was laying on the floor in the middle of an empty room. They hadn’t even bothered putting her in a cell or securing her at all. It looked the same as the last time you had seen her, but her face was twisted into an expression of raw agony and you couldn’t tell if her chest was even rising and falling. You rush over, pulling her body into yours, fingers starting to feel for her pulse. 

You couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t even feel the familiar draining that touching Folykl almost always brought. 

Tears well in your eyes as you hold her tighter. You had gotten out fast. You knew you had. You had to have. You dig your fingers in deeper and hard enough to bruise, digging and searching for any sign of life. An explosion of relief rushes through you as you detect the faintest thrum of life beneath your fingers. 

You stop searching and merely hold her tighter, running your hands through her hair and papping her cheek. Slowly, the feeling of draining begins to pick up again and you feel a single tear slide down your face in pure relief. You quickly wipe your eyes. You could not let Folykl see you crying. You would never live it down. Slowly, you load Folykl onto your back, intent on finding your supplies and getting out, when an abrupt sense of energy being torn out of you rockets through you. You collapse from your crouch and onto your stomach and feel Folykl roll off of you in the opposite direction. 

The draining stops. 

The pieces come together without any concious effort on your part and you know what you had to do. You thought about the troll you had wounded. How strong his psionics had seen in your fight. It was obvious that you wouldn’t be able to feed Folykl and survive. Fuck, there probably wasn’t a troll on Alternia who could. 

But no one said the troll had to survive. 

You strip off your shirt and wrap your hands in it, hoping that it would insulate the connection between you and Folykl enough to drag her where you needed to go. You step around Folykl, wrap her arms up in your ruined shirt, and start dragging her as quickly as possible through the caves. It’s slow going though. Folykl isn’t heavy, but you’re absolutely exhausted. You’re muscles scream in pain as you tug, and the spot where you’re missing your eye throbs in agony. 

Everything fades into the background as you make progress and you try to keep your eyes locked on Folykl, reminding yourself of what was at stake. Finally, you reach the medicalblock and you drag Folykl right next to the cot the sleeping cerulean was on. You move like a zombie as you circle around to the other side of the cot. You would’ve liked to see that you paused to think about what you were about to do, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. What was another highblood finlicker? He tried to cull you and the cycle was just winding back to him. You took a final deep breath and then, with all your might, shoved him off of the cot and onto Folykl. 

As soon as he touches Folykl, his chest stops rising and falling. You briefly think about the troll that Folykl had killed in the Jade cavern. Is this what it had felt like to her? All of her life energy being torn from her faster than she could even move? Could the cerulean even feel himself dying? 

Was Folykl going easy on you when she drained you? 

That last thought touches you in a way you don’t expect. You knew in your head, that she couldn’t simply kill you, but at the same time, she could probably take more, be far greedier than she was, but she never did. 

Folykl’s fingers twitch and you nearly choke. They slowly curl around the shoulders of her prey, holding him tighter, leeching everything she could get. Slowly, the rest of her body began moving suit, and she curled herself around the cerulean, touching every piece of available skin of his to her own. 

Folykl: where the fuck are we?  


You don’t stop your tears this time as you run forward, push the cerulean off of her, and pull her into your chest.


	6. Success and Setbacks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I don't have a beta, but I do my best to catch all my mistakes. If you see something, please feel free to let me know in the comments! Otherwise...  
Please enjoy! Only one chapter and an epilogue to go after this! Thank ya'll for sticking with me!

They left late in the night, late enough that the sun's rays were just starting to peek over the horizon. You hadn’t realized that Remele would want to leave so soon, especially considering her injury, but somehow she had convinced both Stelsa and Tyzias that tonight was the night and that she had a plan. Remele had insisted that she knew the location of the cloaks and clothes that lusus rustlers wore during their raids, and now you watched as she guided the two teals towards it. You had given each of them a small, nearly invisible camera that was attached to each of their shoulders and were otherwise following them with your typical network of hacked cameras. You didn’t really think that you could follow them on all the different camera feeds at once, but the idea of denying yourself any sort of information never appealed to you. As they walked, you checked whether or not the building Remele was allegedly leading them to was actually still there. To your surprise, it was.  


Idly, you wondered if they would even make use of the maps you gave them. It was your parting gift, detailed danger zones of Tharshthrust and a general route to the lowblood hive. Given more time, you’re sure you could’ve done better, more detailed, but you weren’t exactly working on a generous time frame. So, instead of more detail, you also gave them your recording of Diemen as well and a vague promise to try and be more detailed after they made it out of the city. You would have been more insistent on doing more, but by how things were looking you wouldn’t have to.  


As you watched, you couldn’t help but be annoyed that Remele had one again kept you out of the loop of her schemes until she was in the process of executing them. You wondered how the fuck she had convinced them to listen to her in an hour when you hadn't been able to pull it off in days. Was she just that much more charismatic than you? It felt like one of the only possibilities. Either that or Tyzias Stelsa had their own plan and it was Remele at risk.  


As smart as both those trolls were, you didn’t think that type of planning was in their wheelhouse.  


You reach up to rub your temples, keeping your eyes locked on their progress. Your eyes burned and you felt your eyelids drooping, but you forced yourself to stay awake, watching as they broke into and disappeared inside the building.  


When they emerge, you can’t help but make a quiet noise of respect. Apparently, Remele wasn’t lying about the contents of the building either, because all three of the trolls were now draped in heavy cloaks, thick enough to block out the harsh Alternian sun. Remele informed you that a major part of her plan was to move during the day and sleep during the night, effectively becoming diurnal until they reached their destination. You had to admit, it was smart, but that meant you might have to swap your own already massacred sleep schedule to fit theirs. All three of them insisted that you didn’t have to, that they didn’t need your help anymore, but at the same time, you found it hard to just let it go and throw them to the cholerbears.  


You wanted them to make it, wanted it more than you thought you would. Honestly, you might have wanted them to make it even more than they did. It felt almost selfish to think it, but you didn’t care. You had sacrificed a lot already for them, had ruined your only good relationship, had even put your own life on the line in the case of Remele. You wanted to see yourself succeed, to join the rebellion, to accomplish something more than just hacking into a highblood bank account or messing with drones.  


You also really didn’t want to see more trolls culled, especially these ones so you guess there was that to.  


Turning your attention away from the trolls, flick through the rest of the cameras again, checking to make sure their escape route was still clear. Though there route looks clear, one of your feeds shows you something that makes you breath hitch.  


There was an unusually large amount of purplebloods congregating near their section of the city, but thankfully, it was on the south and nowhere near Remele, Tyizas, and Stelsa. Still, the fact that there were so many purples gathering didn’t inspire confidence.  


Were they really going to riot again? So soon? In the sun? It was possible, and you wish you had a better angle of the purples to see what precautions they made. Unfortunately, the camera you’re looking at them through is too shitty and too far away to give you any clear insight. If you had to guess, they were going to put on or already had on what Remele and her squad collected.  


You freeze as you complete the thought. Had Remele known about this? Is that how she got Tyzias and Stelsa to leave so willingly? Had she played you again? You didn’t want to jump to any conclusions and you were more concerned with checking on the city than concerning yourself with Remele, but you knew you wouldn’t be able to get the thought out of your head now that it was there.  


You force yourself to pay attention to something else, and start checking the city for a gathering of drones. You figured there would be one, had to be one. Trizza couldn’t let a bunch of highbloods go crazy and obviously challenge her authority.  


It doesn’t take you long to find what you were looking for. More imperial drones than you had ever seen before were gathering in the complete opposite end of Thrashthrust, to the north, in the ravaged lowblood area. You were happy to see that they too, weren’t directly in the way of the planned escape route, but the sheer amount was intimidating. You guess that Trizza wanted a very clear victory here. Though you didn’t think you could stop being scared at seeing how many drones were actually in Thrashthrust now, you knew that their presence and concentration was all probably worked to your advantage, at least for this plan. If the purples and drones were busy killing each other, and all the spare drones were focused on the battle, it meant there was far less of a chance of your team getting caught.  


Assuming they didn’t get caught in the crossfire that is. They shouldn’t, but paranoia had kept you safe in situations that felt even safer than this.  


You send off a message to the group, telling them to pick up the pace. They probably still had at least thirty minutes before anything substantial happened, but it’s not like Trizza and her drones, nor fucking highbloods were at all predictable.  


You can tell they receive the message because their cameras start bobbing back and they start running. Albeit at a more leisurely pace lower than you would take in the same situation. The confidence of the act struck you unusual and only brought the thought that Remele had played you back into focus. Why had she neglected to tell you she knew the purples planned to riot? Did she not trust you? This time, you don’t push the thought away and let yourself mull carefully over it as you watch them run.  


If Remele didn’t trust you, would she have worn the camera you gave her? Or followed your route? You didn’t think so. She might not totally trust you, but she could hardly be blamed for that. No, no it wasn’t trust that was at issue here. It was something else.  


Slowly you realize that it was because you would have argued against leaving tonight had you known. You didn’t want to risk anything. The more you consider what you would have said to her if she told you about this plan, the surer you were that you would have acted exactly like she expected.  


And Remele had known that. How the fuck was she in your head so quickly? How could a troll so fucking reckless peg you so fast? Credit where credit was due after all, you had to respect her guile, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t be annoyed. Not that being annoyed was helpful. There was nothing you could do at this point but accept what had happened and let it go.  


You’re not actually sure if you can do that, but you do hone your focus back in on the escaping trolls.  


They were closing in rapidly on the edge of the city, and as you checked the cameras near their exit point, you noticed that there was a distinct lack of drones. You grumble to yourself irritably even though you’re happy to see it. As much as you didn’t want to concede that you would have made the wrong call, you were pretty sure you had to here. Their escape was going to be quite literally flawless. You consider sending out to a message to Remele to let her know that you were on to her, that you saw through what she had just pulled, but you didn’t want to cause any distraction right now. Once they got out you could do that.  


You turn your focus away from their feed and back to the rapidly approaching purpleblood riot., deciding that the escape partied had it handled. The crowd of purpleblood was now dressed in all black and if that wasn’t the final nail in corpsebox you didn’t know what would be. You couldn’t really believe they were doing it. Rioting during the day was risky, and they must’ve had known that they’d run into some sort of resistance. You wondered what the point of the strategy was. Were they just looking to inspire fear? Prove that they could attack anywhere, anytime? It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but you had a sense that there was something more, something greater to their plan.  


A flurry of activity catches your eyes and you look at the set of cameras trained on the drones and see them moving, cutting right through the city and straight for the highbloods. You glance back at the highblood’s and see them just starting to move as well. You doubt they knew that the drones were going to get to them first, but you didn’t think it mattered. Destroying drones was probably better than destroying Thrashthrust. Hell, this might’ve been what they wanted.  


You briefly turn back to Remele and the teals and feel the tension you had felt since they left drain. They were exiting the city. They were out. You remind yourself to give them a summary of what was about to happen, and rotate you attention back to the drones.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

The next week passes in a blur of activity, even if you can’t get Remele and the teals out of your head. No matter how much you wanted troll them about their progress, you didn’t want to be annoying. So you stuck to only asking about their progress once a day, no matter how much you wanted to ask more. Every time you got a response you felt happier, more engaged and the rest of your work got better.  


Ever since the group left, you were focused than ever on finally taking control of drones, to do more than just redirect them. You knew you were getting close, knew you were close before, but there was something to what you were doing now. Something that seemed to be working better than anything else you’d every tried before. If you could keep your current pace of work, could keep spitting out the quality code that you did, then you would be done before the group even reached the rebel hive. Then you’d have something to give the rebellion. Something truly invaluable.  


So you worked, only stopping every now and then to ask yourself if you were working too hard, doing too much. Every time you thought the answer was no. Yeah, you probably weren’t getting as much sleep as you needed, and maybe you had pulled another few all-dayers, but could you really blamed? It wasn’t like there was much to do besides. Being up also made it possible to respond to any messages Remle sent to you. You wish that you could still at them through the cameras you gave them, but they had long since died.  


As you think about your habits, you wonder about what Galekh would say. He was always the one to pester you when he thought you were doing too much, insisting that you “take care of yourself.” No matter how much you thought of him though, you resisted the urge to actually attempt to talk to him again. What were you going to do anyway? Troll him to ask him to troll you into taking care of yourself? No fucking way. He didn’t even need you anyway. You were sure he was fine. He was probably just sitting in his hive reading and fighting with Tagora, like the perfect pair of quadrantmates they always were.  


Thinking of Galekh made you consider the grander picture of Thrashtrhsut. He was always way too happy to blabber on about how complex things were. You snort as you try to think of what he would say about the city now. After all, Thrashthrust was barely standing after a series of seemingly endless clashes between highbloods and drones. After the fourth or fifth riot, you stopped following them as closely. They were always the same. The two sides would tear into each other, ravage whatever part of the city they were until it looked like the area was heavily bombed, and then retreated when enough death or destruction occurred. To be honest, you weren’t entirely sure how your own Hivestem didn’t get destroyed. You knew that you weren’t in the busiest area of the city, not one of the more strategic one, but with how pitch both sides seemed for any type of mindless destruction, you almost though it was inevitable. Not that you wanted your stem to be destroyed. Thrashthrust was your home and even if it was stupid and overly stubborn, you didn’t want to leave just because a bunch of highbloods and the empire decided to kill one another. After awhile, the destruction became routine enough that you stopped paying attention to riots as they happened,but you still kept up with empire and highblood chittr. It felt weird to say it, but it was easily the most reliable place to get news of what was happening. Everything else was empire propaganda or run by purplebloods even more insane than the ones rioting. You had to admit to being somewhat curious as to how chittr wasn’t under empire control, but you never sat down to really figure it out. It really didn’t matter. Your best guess was that whatever goldblood had created it at first had gotten culled when they had displeased Trizza enough, and there was no one left to really direct the website.  


There also was the fact that there was very little time to do it. It’s not like Trizza had a lot of free resources to go around. She was dealing with an organized highblood army, one who preferred guerrilla tactics and destruction over direct confrontation, while still suffering from culling most of the lowbloods that kept the empire running in the first place. It also wasn’t as if the lowbloods were entirely toothless. While the rebellion may have yet to made any serious move, they were a fan of hit run destruction tactics too, often destroying important empire buildings, killing anyway who worked for Trizza, and generally being headache.  


Still the Empire kept going and still ended up being the most powerful faction on Alternia and from what you could tell they usually gave just as good as they got, especially in the case of the purpleblood’s. After all, it wasn’t as if there was as many highblood running around as lowbloods, and it wasn’t like every purpleblood was down to stand up to an empire either.  


So, you spent your days coding and watching the turmoil on Alternia grow worse and worse, faster than you’d ever seen something go bad before. You hoped the Rebellion made a proper move if only to prevent the entirety of the planet from imploding. Still, the fighting bought you time to work, and for that you were grateful. Any day now you’d have it, any day now, the drones would be yours.  
_________________________________________________________________________ 

You dart up from your ‘coon, covering your ears as one of the most obnoxious noises you ever heard looped over and over again, seemingly growing louder by every second. You had just gotten to sleep, were finally getting some rest and now this. What the fuck even was it? Why was-  


Oh fuck.  


You climb out of your recouperacoon faster than you ever had before, all but diving onto your computer chair as open your computer up. You didn’t think you’d ever hear that alarm, you almost couldn’t believe you were. You entirely forgot you had even set it up, but now that you were awake you knew exactly what it was.  


Mallek: computer silence the fucking alarm;!  


The noise instantly cuts out and soon the only noise filling your respiteblock was the sound of your fronds pounding against the keyboard, pressing so hard you were almost afraid you’d break it. You could’ve just asked your computer to read out what the alarm was for, rather than searching for it yourself, but you’d made mistakes before. You weren’t perfect. And if your computer’s programming fucked up and lied to you, you weren’t sure you could prevent yourself from breaking something.  


You navigate to the imperial database, plugin a name and wait anxiously. The seconds are ticking by to slowly for you to truly process, and before you know it, your hands have left your keyboard to tear at your hair and pluck at your piercings.  


You identify the feeling Galkeh’s book had told you all about. Anxiety. You were anxious. So anxious, it felt like the last time you had vaped, as if the world was closing in on you and there was no escape, no out. You couldn’t let yourself succumb to it now though. Not when you didn’t even know what had happened, not when there was so much at stake.  


The page finally loads and you stare at the screen in front of you, doing your very best to process what exactly it was that you were seeing. Your hands stop tearing at your face and move to your eyes, thoroughly rubbing them several times. You pinch yourself, fuck you even punch yourself, all to make sure that you were in reality.  


You weren’t. The screen in front of you wasn’t lying.  


Galekh Xigisi: Publically culled on the command of Trizza.  


You resist the desire to hurl yourself from the top of your hivestem. Galkeh had gotten culled, culled fucking publically and you had fucking slept through it, comfy in your recuperacoon while your only pseudo-relationship was massacred. Too fucking focused on work, too fucking stubborn to check in.  


You probe in the database further seconds away from finding who made it in the first place and culling them personally. How was it that the fucking cull-on-sight list had more details than the actually culled trolls list?  


The database slowly loads, bringing up the mass of reports on culled trolls so slowly that it makes you pound your fist on your desk over and over. You couldn’t fucking wait for this bullshit.  


An idea suddenly strikes you. You bet it was on chittr. It was rare that a blueblood got publically culled. Especially on the demand of Trizza herself. There had to be something posted. Something about it. You didn’t give a fuck if it was propaganda. At least propaganda would actually load faster than a slimebeast moved.  


You pull up chittr, search for Galekh, and just like you expect, are immediately met with results. Your eyes lock on the top chirp one made by Trizza itself. There is no text accompanying it.  


You feel frozen, but your body somehow moves. Like it’s simply operating on its own accord, regardless of your ability to think. It was like you’ve taken a step outside of yourself entirely and you’re watching yourself act as if you became a ghost. Every sensation is dull and sluggish. You slip on your headset robotically, then drag your cursor over to the video to hit play.  


The first thing you see is a zoomed-in shot of Trizza lounging on a dais, sitting in the tackiest, gaudy throne you’d ever seen in your life. You knew highbloods had a thing for money and wealth, but Trizza took it to a level you had rarely seen. She smiles and gives the camera wave, and then it's panning out, showing the rest of the room and the trolls in it.  


You feel like you should be scared, and a bolt of fear tries to make its way through you at the sight, but you’re still too far gone, too abstracted from yourself, to really be effected.  


Galekh and Tagora were both kneeling blindfolded on the floor, covered in their own blood and looking like they had just participated in a non-stop muscle theater match. Both of the shoulders were low to the ground, and they didn’t seem to have the energy to move much at all. You couldn’t blame them. You doubted Trizza had kept them anywhere close to their real strength. Hell, both of them probably suffered at least several nights of torture before they ended up here. You had hoped that maybe Tagora had gotten away and that only Galekh had ended up culled, this way you would only be responsible for one death, but you were hardly surprised to see that they would be killed together. They were in the same hive after all.  


You’re struck by how morbid your thoughts are, but your pan doesn’t seem to be the most concerned with rationality right now.  


Your eyes flick away from them and to the hulking blueblood standing casually behind them. He had is ax inverted and was leaning slightly on the handle, the sheer size, and mass of the thing apparently no detriment to the troll. He was dressed in indigo, his fancy suit contrasting strangely with the executioners hood he wore. Finally, he wore an overly long cape, multicolored to represent every single color of the hemospecturm sans fuschia, as if to imply he was an equal opportunity killer.  


Beyond the main show in the center of the room, an assortment of other highcaste trolls stood wearing their fanciest clothes. They were talking to each other casually and occasionally sparing Galekh or Trizza a glance. Waiting for the whole point of the morbid party Trizza had thrown.  


The camera pans back up to a shot of Trizza and you see that she’s grinning wider than before, all too clearly enjoying the morbid show she was putting on. You knew the empress had a thing for theatrics, but this event was taking things to a whole new level as if she thought she was starring in her own movie. A few long beats of silence pass and then finally, she speaks.  


Trizza: Ordinarily, I Ψouldn’t Ψaste my time going on Ψhy this this was troll Ψas culled, but my audience Ψill extend beyond this room tonight, so I guess I should say something.  
Trizza: To but i bluntly, the trolls you see in front of you are traitors to the empire, but beyond being lowblood loving garbage, they also spread lies, lied to everyone, a lie that even hurt gutterbloods.  


You wrinkle your brow. Your pan is working slowly, but it sounds like there was some connection that you should be made between what Trizza was saying and you. 

Trizza: If any troll has seen the fake book this-  


She points lazily to Galekh.  


Trizza: troll uploaded about “disorder of thinkpans” and didn’t think it was lies, then I’m here to tell you that it’s blatant bullshit.   
Trizza: Of course, the empire doesn’t abide by lies and so Ψe had to find the source of it. Of course, he didn’t come forΨard and Ψasted our time, making us we check every single bookhives, regardless of Ψhere to find it.  
Trizza: Of course, Ψhen Ψe get there, not only do Ψe find the book, but also find him with this rebel  


Her finger shifts to Tagora and the audience's eyes follow, settling on Tagora with an almost causal sort of disdain.  


All of the sudden, your pan makes the needed connections, it all snaps into focus. The world starts to crush you and you gasp for breath, trying to breathe through the weight that was settling over you.  


You did that. You uploaded that book. It was your fault that Galeh and Tagora were getting culled. Your fault that they were getting tortured. You’re a monster.  


You try to tear your gaze away from the monitor, try to take off your headset, but you can’t, your pan simply disobeying you. You feel your eyes burning and something wet slides down your face, but for the life of you you can’t put it together what it is, your mind too wrapped in panic and too focused on the indigo and his ax.  


The indigo takes a step back, then raises it as he presses his boot into Galekh’s face, driving him into the ground. The indigo removes his foot, and then his ax is swinging, cutting through the air in a wide arc and beheading Galekh. You watch in disgust as an explosion of indigoblood splashes into the air, and a head rolls across the ground. Galekh’s body collapses to the ground lifeless.  


The executioner turns his attention to Tagora and you watch the same act be repeated with exacted cruelty. Bile rises in your throat, one so strong you can’t fight back, and then you’re vomiting on your keyboard and desk over and over. Any time you're not vomiting you're hacking and wheezing, desperate for air, but the bile comes back again and the process starts anew.  


You had seen trolls culled, probably seen more violent deaths, but the fact that this was all your fault, that your greed and stupidity head led to this moment, was too much to take.  


The video cuts to an end, but then beings to repeat itself. Before Triza begins talking you finally find it in yourself to move, and exit the page before shoving your chair away from your desk. You rip your headset off and let it clatter to the floor, then throw your heads in your hands. A sob tears it’s way out of your throat and you feel yourself collapsing, the world finally closing in and leaving you alone and in the dark.  
____________________________________________________________ 

Your palms slam against the cool stone of the cave wall as you sink to your knees, lowering Folykl down with you. You press your head against the cold stone of the wall and breathe deeply. You had only managed to walk around an hour away from the cave you were held in before you needed to stop, before the thought of walking farther made you feel like you were going to die. The wounds on your face and back were burning and you knew the bandages would need to be swapped. You had done a sloppy job of doing it before you left. Luckily, the area the highbloods had dragged you to was absolutely littered with tiny caves, nooks, and crannies in the side of tall hills or hidden in the ground of the forest. You didn’t know where you were anymore, and you didn’t have your maps either, but you found it difficult to whine at the loss. The highbloods had more than enough supplies to replenish what you had lost.  


You figured the location you had found was fairly safe too, being tucked away under a bush. The troll that had gone back for help was, at the earliest, returning now. It was possible that when he found his culled allies he’d skip straight to hunting for you, but you weren’t so sure. Walking into a room only to see culled royalty rarely inspired confidence and he had no real way of knowing where you were. What you worried about, was another hunting party being sent your way. Folykl had insisted that they wouldn’t, that two escaped troll couldn’t be worth the resources, but you weren’t so sure. Unless Trizza had something more pressing than hunting lowbloods, you thought you’d always be tracked.  


Folykl: holy shit stop thinking so hard your pan is going to explode  
Folykl: just relax  


Relax? She wanted you to relax? You didn’t even know how she could say something like that without so much as a hitch in her voice. You move again, trying to get more comfortable and feel the cuts on your back and face flare up in pain.  


Marsti: I’ll relax if you change my bandages -_-  
Marsti: I did a shit job of it -_-  


She doesn’t reply and instead drops her hands to the hem of your ruined shirt to yank it off. You would need a new one at some point, but for now it’d have to do. You’d do a more thorough check of all the highblood loot you had stolen later. You had mostly focused on grabbing the bags that you thought had food and anything medical, but you didn’t really know what was in them at large. You knew it was enough by their weight, but enough was awfully vague.  


Folykl: you have to hand me shit you know it’s not like i can see them  
Folykl: bandages and disinfectant don’t have fucking energy all over them  


You groan voicing your complaint in the most obnoxious way possible. You know she’s right though. You press back lightly, but Folykl doesn’t give at all, keeping her arms and legs wrapped around you with her body pressed flush against your back.  


Marsti: Back up. I can’t turn around with you like this -_- 

Folykl lets out her own obnoxious groans, obviously mocking you, but she moves anyway, shuffling back to her own knees while shifting her hands to place them on your hips. You turn, resting your head against the wall with your back only a few inches away. After you do, you catch sight of an expression on Folykl’s face you’d never seen before. She looked...affectionate? Kind? You weren’t sure you’d ever apply those words to Folykl in any sincere sense, but the way she was looking at you was making your cheeks heat up.  


Folykl: do you want me to change your bandages or not?  


Your glad to see that Folykl’s own cheeks are flushing gold. Another moment passed between you, both of your eyes locking on the others, but you manage to tear you gaze away yanking over the bag and pulling out what you needed. Still, you can feel Folykl gripping your hips, pulling your energy. The skin under her hands feels hot, hotter than any part of your body ever had, and you feel your bloodpusher skipping beats in a way it’s never done.  


Marsti: Here -_-  


You hold the bandages and disinfectant, waiting for Folykl to take it. She gets off her knees and sits, than wraps her legs around you, replacing her hands with her hips, then snatches the material from your hands and placing them in her lap.  


You quickly begin to unwrap the bandages all over your body, trying to go as fast as possible and doing your best not to look at Folykl while you do. The entire act feels strangely intimate, and once your bandages are all off and hanging limply in your hand you look back up at Folykl. Your blush immediately intensifies and you resist the urge to cover yourself with your hands. You’re wearing a bra, but you feel more naked than you ever felt before, no matter how much Folykl insists she can’t see you like that.  


Despite your embarrassment, you were glad you felt like that, glad that all your attention wasn't focused on all your injuries, on the fact that you only had one eye now. It hadn’t been the most disruptive thing to have happened yet, you thought that the gashes on your face and back were far more painful and worse, but you knew it was permanent, it wouldn’t go away, and at a point when you were less tired and more attentive, it would annoy you.  


Folykl: are you done?  


You snap back to reality and nod, throwing your dirty bandages off to the side. You move your hands up to your face, quickly tossing off those too, than lower your hands and place them gently on your lap.  


Folykl: i don’t know where the fuck i’m supposed to be put with these so you’re going to have to help  
Marsti: It's not that hard to figure out. Just wrap them around me, it’s hard to cover somewhere I’m not fucked up -_-  
Folykl: if you want to look like a fucking mummy than fine i don’t give a fuck  
Folykl: don’t you want this cream shit on them too?  
Marsti: Yeah I do, just cover your hands in it and I’ll guide you on where to touch -_-  


Folkyl grunts her assessments than squirts the cream of the antiseptic into her hands, rubbing it in lightly before holding them out for you. You take them, then start slowly trailing her hands over you, making sure not to miss any spots. The last thing you wanted to deal with was an infection. That thought becomes quickly derailed as you force yourself to suppress a shiver at the feeling of her touching you. You hurt almost everywhere, and all the cuts started burning again with the introduction of the cream, but Folykl’s attention somehow makes it better, less painful than it would’ve been doing it alone.  


Folykl: jegus you’re fucked up  


Folykl sounds concerned, but the vulgarity of words, combined with her hands on you, causes you to let out a nervous and high pitched laugh. Folykl’s hand go slack in your own and she cocks her head to the side, furrowing her brows.  


Folykl: are you fucking losing it or something?   


You were pretty sure you weren't but every point of contact was making it harder to be sure. You didn’t know why you were only like this now. Maybe it was because your tired, maybe it’s because you both had almost died, but really it didn’t matter. Not when she was making you feel like this.  


Marsti: Yeah I’m fine, let’s just finish -_-  


Your voice comes out breathier than you intended, but if Folykl notices, she didn't comment.  


You go back to tracing her hands over your injuries, letting them go when you think you’ve covered everything. You place Folykl’s hands on your shoulders than release them, bringing your own back into your lap. Your breath is shallower than usual, but you do your best to hide it. Folykl reaches for the bandages on her lap and you follow her hand's movements, her fingers twisting out a long length of some. As soon as you notice you're basically staring at her hands, you look pointedly up and away, doing your best to not stare, and trying to cover the blush that was now heating up your face more intensely than ever.  


Folykl: why the fuck do you keep looking away from me?  
Folykl: is there something on my face?  


Typically, you’d file away her words as another one of her seemingly endless barbs, but you couldn’t for this time. Not when her voice was that low, dripping with honey and mischief. Folykl scoots herself in closer and once again runs her fingers lightly over your back, feeling for where the cream way lied. A bandage quickly follows.  


The process repeats itself over and over, but the whole time you can feel Folykl getting closer until the last bandage is laid and she’s climbing into your lap completely, tracing her fingers over the marks on your face. She leans in close, bringing her mouth to your ear, then whispers.  


Folykl: gotta get all of this shit right?  
Marsti: Of course -_-  


She reaches out to lightly drag her fingers all over your face, not even bothering to try and stay on target. The cream of the antiseptic is not as thick on her hands as before, but it’s still there, and when her fingers do brush across your cuts, it still burns. You let out a quiet hiss of pain when her thrumb brushes across a cut right under your lip. Folykl’s hand pauses, her thumb resting on the cut, and you look into her eyes nervously wondering why.  


Folykl: this one hurts like a bitch huh?  
Folykl: let me kiss it better  


She’s bending forward a moment later, removing her thumb and just ghosting her lips over it. You inhale harshly and she must hear it because her face breaks out into a huge grin.  
Folkyl: fuck this i’ll just kiss you better instead  


Then her lips on yours as her hands gently cup your face, bringing you forward into her lips, kissing you harder. You can’t find it in yourself to resist her, didn’t want to at all. It felt good to have her so close, to know that she was okay, but most of all, it just felt good to have her lips on your own.  


You put your hands in her hair, running them through the veritable ocean of hair that Folykl kept. It was knotted and tangled, so much so that, if she ever decided to brush it, it would likely take hours, but to you it hardly mattered. To you it still felt silky and nice, and you were all too happy to let your hands bury into it to haul her closer, to demand more.  


You don’t know how long the two of you kissed without breathing, but the need for oxygen was finally letting itself be known amid the haze of your pleasure, and you pull back from Folykl’s lips gasping.  


Marsti: Folykl do you-  


You let out a quiet gasp as her lips affix themselves to your neck to nip and bite. You never thought you’d be comfortable enough with another troll to ever let their fangs that close to you, but with Folykl it felt okay. Even if her fangs were some of the sharpest and longest you’d ever seen on a troll outside of a jadeblood.  


You try to move your head to kiss her again, to pay back the favor yourself, but Folyk’s hands come up to tangle in your hair and keep you still. Every Time you try to turn, you feel her grip tighten slightly. You don’t need to ask her to get the message.  


You let yourself drift away, lost in the sea on sensation as Folykl bites at your skin and kisses you. You’re sure going to be covered in bruises and marks, but what was more when you already looked like you were dead. You would let Folykl have what she wanted.  


Folykl: is this okay?  
Folykl: can i do more?  


Her warm breath washes over your ear and you shiver, while moving your hands to her hips and hauling her in closer, even though it felt impossible.  


Marsti: Yes -_-  


Folykl kisses you again and the rest of the night is a blur.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

You’re surprised by how easy it is to fall back into your familiar routine with Folykl. At first you thought your night in the cave would make things awkward, ruin the sense of camaraderie you’d built up running from drones and surviving together. But the following week proves you wrong. Her barbs are still just as sharp and her complaining is just as endless. Sure, the two of you cuddle more than ever when you slept, but you liked that Folykl wasn’t obsessed with quadrants. You liked the fact that the topic has never even came up.  


You were happy about how fast your injuries were healing as well. The seadwellers nails had beyond any shadow of a doubt, fucked up your back, but it didn’t seem like it would scar. The most annoying thing was your missing eye. You knew you might be more annoyed when you more aware of missing it, but you had no idea how far that would go. You wore a bandage as an eye patch constantly and it was possibly one of the most annoying things in the world. It made your face sweat as you walked, but you couldn't blame it for the way your depth perception was warped to hell or the way you had o keep your head on a constant swivel to see everything you wanted to. However, you were happy with how well it was healing. Of all of your wounds, that was the one you feared infection from the most, but thankfully everything seemed like it was going to be fine.  


What you weren't as happy about, was how fucking hard it was finding Zebede’s hive without your map. You had lost it somewhere between getting knocked out by the highbloods and your subsequent escape and without it felt like you were just wondering the Alternian wilderness, waiting to get culled. You remembered in loose terms, what direction you were heading and what the coordinates were, but without a map to look at you were nervous you were getting everything wrong.  


Thankfully, towards the end of the week, you had begun to see signs of other trolls. There were worn paths and litter on the ground, growing more and more common the farther you went along. You even managed to scrounge up a new shirt, which conspicuously lacked any sign at all. The find made you incredibly happy. You’d been wearing your same scrap of a shirt for far too long now, finally being able to abandon it was glorious. Plus, having something to wear over the bandages that still crisscrossed your back would stop them from getting so dirty.  


However, even with your recent success in finding a new shirt and confirmation that you had been heading in the rate direction, you still felt on edge. You thought you were justified in it though. Every time you thought you were in the clear, you had so far. found yourself in another situation where your culling was imminent. You also had a hard time getting your mind off of the troll hunter who you couldn’t help but feel like was tracking you.  


You had an even harder time getting rid of the dreams of the trolls you culled.  


Folykl helped a good deal, her closeness driving away some of the most terrifying thoughts, but they were still in the back of your head. You were pretty sure Folykl dealt with the same, but she hid it better. Always hiding her discomfort with how things had gone behind jokes and sarcasm, but when you woke up in the middle of the day due to her shaking and had to hold her close to get her to stop, you knew you were right. Though in the end, you knew neither of you regretted a thing. In a competition between having nightmares or getting culled, the choice was obvious.  


So, the two of you trekked on, holding each other at night and walking for most of the day. You were bound to get there sooner or later, but the sheer boredom of things was starting to get to you. You knew Folykl felt the same. It wasn’t like walking provided the most entertainment in the world and you knew that taking in the scenery wouldn't be something she'd enjoy even if she could do it.  


Nonetheless, on the last night of the pedigree, precariously close to sunrise, you felt nervous energy replace the boredom. You were close. So fucking close. The trails and litter were becoming so commonplace as to be unremarkable and you were somewhat surprised that you haven't run into another troll at this point. You wouldn’t be able to make it tonight, the suns rise too imminent, but by early evening tomorrow, you’d be there.  


You and Folykl find a small patch of dense trees to settle down under for the night and you both try to make sure you remain as hidden as possible. It was probably unnecessary all things considered. If the empire was this close to the hive you had been traveling to this whole time you’d have far bigger problems than being slightly exposed, but the idea of laying out in the open was far too distasteful to accept. Plus, as Folykl so kindly reminded you, it wasn’t like all lowbloods were above stealing from you either. Not like you had much left to steal, but if a troll saw another troll carrying around a big bag, the truth of what was in it would likely stop mattering.  


Thus, the two of you hide away from the harsh day, doing your best to cloak your presence before cuddling up closer than you ever really got in the day. Even though Folykl was attached to you at all times, having her so close when you were about to sleep felt different. Like it was less out of necessity and more out of a genuine desire. Then, came your favorite part of every night, where Folykl would spend a few minutes laying against you, simply kissing you, before the two of you finally drifted off to sleep.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

You wake up slowly lifting your hands up to rub away the sleep in your eyes as you took stock of the world around you. Everything was the same, Folykl was still lying on top of you, all of your supplies were where you left it, and it didn’t look like a single troll or animal had even taken note of you. In the distance, you saw that the sun was finally dipping below the horizon, beckoning night to come again. The same nervous excitement you had felt yesterday returned, and you shake Folykl awake, eager to get up and to get moving.  


She lets out a low grown and tightens her grip around you, refusing to move.  


Marsti: I know you’re awake you always do this -_-  
Marsti: Just get up, we’re close -_-  


Folykl remains motionless.  


Marsti: They might have sopor we can sleep in, but if you want to lie on the fucking ground for longer that’s fine too -_-  


That one gets her and she shifts back, moving her chest off of yours as she glares at your though a veil of dark hair. You can’t help but laugh. She looks so grumpy and pouty, but somehow still so cute. Previously, you didn’t think you would ever really think Folykl Darane was cute, but perspectives could always change.  


You lift a hand and run it through her hair, letting your thoughts run wild. You didn’t want to convince yourself that you were safe when you weren’t when you still had to make it to the hive proper, but you still felt light and having Folykl so close to you made everything seem like it’d be okay.  


Folykl: holy fucking shit you made me get up and now you’re just staring at me  
Folykl: are we leaving or not?  


Even through her hair, you see her cheeks heating up to a pale yellow. You let yourself take in Folykl’s expression for a moment longer before you nod and start gathering everything you’d taken out earlier.  


Marsti: Yeah we’re moving -_-  


You’re ready only a couple of minutes later. You briefly consider staying a bit longer to eat, but by how quick, Folykl’s movements are, you can tell she would say no. You couldn’t say you blamed her. If she had asked you the same question you’d say no too. You just wanted to get to the hive. Fuck they might even have hot food there.  


Marsti: Alright, get on -_-  


Folkyl crawls around to your back and takes her familiar perch and then you’re standing up, using a tree to help. Getting up and down with Folykl on you was the hardest part. Once you were standing everything got easier, but even if she weighed next to nothing, your supplies didn’t.  


Folykl: alright let’s get the fuck to that hive  
Folykl: i swear if i have to spend another minute more sleeping outside of sopor i’m going to cull myself  


You roll your eyes and start walking, carefully picking your way out of your hiding spot onto more even ground. The night is cooler than usual, but the temperature was surprisingly pleasant all things considered. 

Folykl: just so you know if there is no fucking sopor i’m never letting it go  


You ignore her comment and just keep walking.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

After what you think is an hour or so of boring travel, you spot your first group of trolls yourself. They’re a group of four rusties, talking quietly among each other as they head in the same direction as you. They spot you around the same time as you spot them, and one of them gives you a small nod of acknowledgment before turning back to their friends.  


Folykl: they’ve got psionics  
Folykl: weak as fuck but they still have them  


You hum in response, keeping a side-eye on the trolls as you continued. Truthfully, you weren't that worried about them. If they were going to pull something, they’d probably have done it by now. That, and they were lowbloods who, to the best of your knowledge, were doing the exact thing you were. You didn’t have the energy to be too paranoid either.  


It doesn’t take long for more trolls to come into your sight-line and before long there was one everywhere you looked, all moving to the same place.  


Folykl: did we miss the memo on this shit or what?  
Folykl: pretty sure all these bulgemunchers didn’t get a goddamn jade to tell them where to go  
Marsti: I don’t know. I didn’t have that many friends so if it was a word of mouth thing I’m not surprised I never heard about it -_-  


Folkyl goes silent on your back, contemplating your words before she clears her throat and responds.  


Folykl: yeah probably  
Folykl: me and kuprum didn't have the best rep  


Talking about Kuprum was still a sore spot for her. She never talked about him outside a few offhand remarks and you stopped pushing her for more. You reach a hand back and run it through her hair before quickly yanking it back down. You hear her growl at you, but there is no real venom behind it. No matter how much she insists she hates it, you know it’s the fastest way to give sympathy without saying something. Despite how much she talked, you’ve found that words don’t mean a lot to Folykl.  


Marsti: Whatever. We’re all here now. It’s nice to see we didn’t all get culled -_-  


Another thirty minutes pass with you following the crowd of trolls before you see your destination finally emerge into view. Your first thought is to scoff at the word hive. What you were looking at was way fucking bigger than just a single hive. It was a whole neighborhood of them, plus a few more massive buildings. The excitement you felt earlier magnifies tenfold. Not only did these lowbloods avoid getting culled, but they had also already started rebuilding. Rebuilding fucking fast. You begin to think about how they’re doing it, doing your best to conjure some sort of explanation, when Folykl answers your question without you even having to ask.  


Folykl: holy shit they have highblood building shit  
Folykl: no fuck that that’s seadweller stuff  


You pause, then scan the area, searching for what Folykl was talking about. It doesn't take long to spot and you feel your own jaw loosen a bit in surprise. A group of trolls was hard at work feeding a machine with raw material, then clocking the gummy like things that popped out. Another troll was actually doing the building, carefully placing down walls and floors, all first highlighted with a pale blue hologram. It was hard to tell at the distance what they were building, but the closer you got to the encampment, the less you cared. There were teams of trolls building with the devices, everywhere, erecting hive after hive. You looked around, trying to spot some sort of headquarters or main building.  


You turn to look at the crowd and see a few trolls who look about as surprised and confused as you, however, they’re still in the minority. Everyone else continued to surge confidently forward as if the almost lowblood metropolis that was being constructed was wholly unsurprising.  


Marsti: Fuck it -_-  
span class="aradia">Marsti: I have no idea where to go, so unless you’ve got a better idea, I’m following the crowd -_-  


Folykl grunts her agreement, clinging onto your tighter than usual as you start moving again. The draining sensation that had long since become background noise spikes up to a far more noticeable level, and you crane your neck over your shoulder, trying to fruitlessly to get a glimpse of Folykl’s face.  


Marsti: Can you chill with the leeching, please? -_-  
Marsti: I’ve been walking all day, I’m tired too. Don’t sap the rest of my strength and make us fucking lay down when we’re literally here -_-  


Folykl’s once again remains silent, but you do feel her ease up a bit on her energy leeching even as she squirms herself closer to you and grips you harder. She ends up settling on a level that is still higher than usual and your brow wrinkles in concern.  


Marsti: Are you okay? -_-  


She remains quiet and you maintain your pace, fighting against the urge to stop and plop down on the ground where you stood. You were pretty sure something was bothering her. While you might be one of the worst trolls you know when it comes to talking about emotions, Folykl was far worse at hiding hers. Try as she might to hide everything behind snark and sass, still always ended up wearing her feelings on her sleeve.  


Marsti: Folykl answer me, are you okay -_-  


A beat of silence passed, but then Folkykl is answering, even as she keeps her voice low.  


Folykl: i have voidrot okay i don’t want to get culled here by some dipshit fucking wiggler  


She pulls back as soon as the words are out of her mouth and, for lack of a better word, pouts. At first, you thought that you should just reassure her that it would be fine, but the more you thought about that course of action the less appealing it seemed. Sure, your position on the hemospectrum didn’t matter now, but that didn’t erase everything.  


Marsti: It’s fine -_-  
Marsti: If they have a problem, we’ll go somewhere else -_-  


Folykl scoffs behind you and you’re sure that she’s making that face she always is whenever she’s about to mock something you just said.  


Folykl: “go somewhere else” yeah okay  
Folykl: if you haven’t noticed there is nowhere else to go  
Marsti: Then we’ll find one -_-  


Folykl’s grip around you loosens slightly.  


Folykl: so if we get up there and they only want you in you’ll leave with me?  
Folykl: you better not be fucking bullshitting me  
Marsti: I’m not -_-  
Marsti: I promise -_-  


You’re surprised by your own conviction, by how sure you were in your own words. You understand why Folykl might doubt you, fuck you understood why any troll in a position like hers would think you were full of shit, but at this point, you couldn’t imagine ditching Folykl. You didn’t have a name for what you felt for her, but you could always figure it out later if you really needed to. What mattered now was that you wouldn’t leave Folykl. Not here.  


Folykl: fine  


She sounded so unsure and you frown to yourself. You knew that walking towards what might be your new home was probably not the place for this conversation, but you also didn’t want to ignore the topic. Eventually, you decide to just let it go. It wasn’t worth the risk of an argument here.  


As you grow closer to the settlement, the crowd grows denser and stars to convene together, the space everyone once kept disappearing. Thankfully, there is still enough space for you to not feel like you’re crushed and at least have some elbow room. As the crowd continues to convene, you think you’re able to figure out where everyone was going. Up ahead, scores of trolls were coming to a stop in front of one of the smaller hives in the area, and soon the part of the crowd you’re in follows suit as well, finally grinding to a halt.  


The crowd was surprisingly quiet considering how many of you there were.  


Folykl: please someone tell me what the fuck we’re waiting for  


Folykl’s voice is loud as she calls out to the trolls around the two of you. Instantly, you feel dozens of eyes on you.  


Troll: i dont know   
Folykl: holy shit you’re fucking stupid  
Folykl: good thing i asked for why we are doing this shit unless “i don’t know” is why then shut t he fuck up  


You wince. She was coming on way too strong, but you didn’t want to second guess her here. That and you secretly thought she was right.  


Troll: We’re waiting to get hives.  
Folykl: cool  
Troll: dont need to be such a bitch about it  
Folykl: sorry you’re a dipshit i can’t help-  


You reach down and squeeze her ankle in disapproval. The last thing you wanted to do was start a fight right now. You had done enough fighting to last you a fucking lifetime.  


Folykl gets the message and stops talking, even if she’s still bristling in irritation. You knew that she was smart enough to know why being quiet here was better, but you also knew her well enough that she never took an insult lying down. Personally, you weren’t happy with the troll that called her a bitch either, but you were never going to find who in the crowd and you honestly couldn’t give a shit less about them. You were tried and if what the other troll was saying was true, if you actually got a hive with recouprecoon, you could hold your tongue.  


The crowd slowly begins to shuffle and you suppress a groan. You were glad to be here, happy to not be culled, fucking thrilled to have a hive, but standing outside waiting for it was going to be near torture.  


Folykl: i’m sleeping wake me up when we’re there  
Marsti: Bitch -_______-  


Folykl just laughs and snuggles herself into you back.  


You can’t help but smile.  
_______________________________________________________________________ 

The wait is brutal. You thought you knew what it was like to be bored, but standing in the crowd and slowly shuffling forward was bad enough that you thought it might fry your pan. Still, the line moved and finally, when you were about to approach the front, you shake Folykl awake. You reach back, grab a fist full of her shirt, and yank as hard as you can side to side. You know it’s petty, but you thought you deserved to be a bit petty, especially after letting her sleep off the whole wait.  


Folykl: holy shit i’m up can you fuck off  
Marsti: Are you sure you’re up? I’m not so sure -_-  


You punctuate your statement with a particularly hard tug and you hear Folykl hiss out in annoyance and dig her heels into your sides.  


Folykl: you’re so fucking annoying  
Marsti: Mhm -_-  


You mess with her for a few more seconds than stop as you notice that the trolls handing out hives were giving you impatient looks. There were ten of them and you’re surprised to see that they were mostly. Sometimes, you wondered if some caste stereotypes were true, because, for as scary as some teals are, most of them seemed to still love paperwork. They were sitting at a long table and each had a husktop popped open in front of them, as well as several huge piles of paper.  


Troll: Are you coming?  
Folykl: she sure as fuck is  


You pinch the bridge of your nose, but walk forward anyway, keeping your eyes on the teal as you do. She snatches up several pieces of paper from the desk and lays them down facing towards you, then conjures two pens from seemingly nowhere and sets it down beside the papers.  


Teal: You and your quadrantmate have to each fill out your own forms. As soon as you’re done, we’ll add you to the system and assign you hive. There is limited space, so you will likely be sharing whatever hive assigned to you with other trolls for the time being. There are at most, three recouprecoons in each hive, so there you will have to share. That obviously shouldn’t be a problem for you two. If either of you would like to join the rebellion proper, please inform me, as we are still recruiting. There are separate forms you must fill out for those. Know that you can sign up at any time and do not have to do it now…  


The teal words leave their mouth like a waterfall and you simply stop listening. That and the amount of time she said “quadrantmates” in reference to you and Folykl. You’re not stupid or stubborn enough to try and deny that there was something between the two of you, especially after your night in the cave, but having it called out so plainly was jarring. However, you’re able to just ignore it, you’re tiredness and desired to get into a hive outweighing anything else.  


Foylkl slides off of your back and stands next to you, snatching up her on pen and set of forms as she reads and starts signing. You're glad that you’re seemingly on the same page about the tealbloods comments. Not that you were worried that Folykl would say you weren’t together, no it’s because she would go in the exact opposite direction just to fuck with you and make you blush.  


The tealblood is still talking as you finish signing and checking over your documents, and you’re honestly somewhat impressed. How she hadn’t run out of things to say yet was the type of miracle that purplebloods got themselves frothing at the mouth before.  


Teal: Alright, here is your assigned hive number. You will have hivemates, but unfortunately, I am unable to tell you when they might arrive. So you can-  


You can’t take anymore and grab Folykl’s hand to yank her away, all too eager to escape back to your new hive and get away from the obnoxious teal.  


Folykl follows without complaint.  



	7. Death and Drones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, ya'll this is the last chapter and the end of the story so I just wanted to thank yall for sticking with me. There is a lot that I think I could have done better on with this fic and a lot of stuff I don't like, but it's okay! At the very least I had a lot of fun writing it, The friendsim trolls deserve more attention and love.  
I'm going to do a retrospective on this at some point, so if you're interested in that be on the look out. There also will be an epilogue posted at the same time this goes up, so please enjoy that too!  
As always, I don't have a beta reader and I've been really busy with the holidays, so let me know if there are any mistakes you see in the comments.

You don’t remember when you fell asleep, but when you blink your eyes open you’re instantly hit with a massive headache. Your back and neck feel sorer than ever before. You don’t even think about complaining about it though. 

You deserved it after what you did. 

Your eyes drift back to your monitors and you see the blinking notification of a received message blipping away on a monitor. You knew that it was from Remele, but thinking about her only reminded you of Tyzias and Stelsa. Reminded you of the fact that you got one of their friends killed. 

The longer you look at the notification, the more conflicted you become. If you stopped now, gave up to crawl into your recouprecoon and never moved again, Galekh’s death would’ve been pointless. You already didn’t think you could ever forgive yourself for getting him killed, but if you stopped, let his death be in vain, all because you felt bad about yourself… 

You couldn’t live with yourself. Not that it was easy to live with yourself now, but that would be the nail in the corpsebox. 

Still even as your pan worked on convincing yourself that you had to keep going, had to do something, you still found it hard to make your body cooperate. It was as if it entirely disagreed, like it was on the side that told you to go crawl into your ‘coon and let yourself die. 

You wish your pan was clearer, wish your thoughts stopped playing images of Galekh getting executed to you. It made it so much harder to think, so much harder to decide what the fuck you should be doing. 

You manage to force yourself to sit up straighter and lower your hand to your legs. Then, with a burst of effort, sink your nails deep into your thighs. You hiss at the feeling and you know that you were going to bleed, but the pain centered you, made it easier to think. You had to choose something and right now, your choices were between sitting and doing nothing or trying something. 

Your eyes focus in on the notification as you dig your nails deeper into your legs. You sent out Remele, Tyzias, and Stelsa. You were responsible for them. If you sat and did nothing and they got culled, that would be fault too. 

The thought centers you further, and you extract your nails from your legs. You feel blood welling up spreading over the freshly received wounds, but you were already moving, bending down to the floor to scoop your headset from the floor. 

You slip your headphones back on your head and scoot your chair back forward, bringing yourself in front of your desk again. You were going to force yourself to act. The pain could wait for later when you were in your recuperacoon or you had a silent moment. You wouldn’t let Tagora and Galkeh’s death have been in vain. 

You click on the message and quietly scan it. Thankfully, it was the same standard update you usually received. Just Tyzias telling you that they were still moving and that they would probably be there in another few days travel. You wish they could move faster, wish their pace wasn’t as slow as it ended up ending, but you knew better than to bring it up and complain. Moving through Alternia was dangerous enough, let alone as a cull-on-sight target. 

You type back your typical clipped response and send it off. As soon as you’re done, your stomach lets out a growl, proclaiming it’s hunger and insisting that you go and eat. You ignore it. Despite your stomach’s claims, you didn’t feel hungry, and you doubted you’d be able to put any food down even if you tried. That and it had taken enough energy to haul yourself back in front of your desk. You wanted to work, not waste time eating. 

You pull up your drone controlling project and stare at the code for a long minute. You were close. You knew you were. You didn’t think you could truly control the drones with it, but the more you thought about it, the less important that seemed. The idea, once seeming reasonable and rational, now seemed extremely unrealistic. Even if you got control of the drones, what would you even do with them? You doubted you could control all of them at once, you were one troll after all, and at the end of the day, you didn’t want to spend your whole day trying to manage only a small amount of drones. Sure, you could probably set up AI’s or some other less active mode of control, but that would take time. Far more time than you wanted to spend. You wanted to do something now. Something unpredictable. Something that mattered. 

Slowly an idea works its way to the front of your thinkpan, one that you liked more and more the longer you were aware of it. 

You didn’t have to completely control the drones. You just needed them to attack the empire as well as everyone else. While it would have been nice to sic them only on the empire, you doubted you could make that happen. It would require more work, more time that you didn’t have. If you wanted to do something like that, you were better off continuing to try and hack the drones completely. 

Making the empire a possible target though, that was far easier. You could already misdirect the drones and you were close to seizing them, but you could take everything in a new direction. Focus much more on the way drones chose their enemies and how willing they were to attack trolls higher up on the hemospectrum. You had already seen first hand that they would cull fucking highbloods if the situation called for it. 

Your thinkpan clears the more you focus on your plan and you quickly begin looking through the code, trying to find where you needed to change things and what needed to be added. 

This actually might end up being more effective than hijacking control. This would be far more subtle, far harder to deal with. The drones' movements would be entirely illogical, and it would make Trizza’s largest, most powerful fighting force, effectively useless. No, not useless, a threat. Just like the highbloods were. Even if she managed to take control of the drones again, the havoc you planned on reeking would buy the rebellion time and if you were lucky, cull a whole lot of Trizza supporters in the process. 

Your stomach gives another growl, but you ignore and it and start working.  
________________________________________________________________________ 

Time passes in a blur from then on out, and you spend all of your time coding and testing, only pausing to use your loadgaper or drink water when your body demanded it. Your eyes burned from staying open so long, but you still didn’t feel tired. The only way you even manage to know how long it’s been is because of Remele’s messages. She told you that she, Tyzias, and Stelsa would be arriving at the rebel hive soon, that they had started to run across lowbloods traveling in the same direction as them.  


She also made sure to note the amount of dirty and threats that were thrown their way.  


You personally couldn't give a shit less if some trolls were mean to them, but even through the haze of your feverish coding, you knew it was more than that. Basic hostility would be one thing, but there was a good chance that the lowbloods would just cull all three of them, which you assumed was the real reason Remele paid such attention to it. Some sort of quasi guilt trip.  


You didn't worry about it. Instead, you channeled all of your concerns into your project, trying to make sure it was perfect. The hemospectrum had made them a target, but you could even the odds. If they showed up at Zebede’s hive and told them they were working with the hacker that brought down Trizzas’s drones things would go better for them. You could help them. Make sure they didn’t get culled or executed.  


Their success would contrast with your failure to help Galekh and Tagora.  


You were making decent progress and the code that had been sitting in your mind's eye for so long finally starts coming together into something coherent, something meaningful. Every time you test it, the drone that’s affected is a bit more out of control, more reckless, more dangerous, more of everything you needed.  


Your room is flooded with more light than usual when another message from Remele rings in. You take a glance at it, trying to decide whether to ignore it or not. Usually, you at least read it right way, but right now you were close to finishing. You knew you had to be. The last drone you had targeted had acting the exact way you wanted it to. All you needed to do now was implement it on a wider scale, figure out how to spread your virus through the connection all drones shared.  


Still, you never missed a message before and it would barely take time to look at. Just a quick glance so it stopped bothering you, so you could file away the only other thing you cared about as done.  


You open the message, skimming it over once before crinkling your eyes and reading it again. Still, the words in front of you don’t feel real, so you read it a third time, pausing over every word, taking everything in. Your done project fades into the background as you begin to simply read the message over and over again.  


As you read, you were reminded of a condition that you had read in Galekh’s book. It made reading hard, made all the letters jumbled up and confusing. You wish you had it now so you didn’t have to read this message.  


You feel something wet running down your face again as you slowly read again. One final time. Just to make sure.  


Remele: Mallek, we made ite to the hive. They don’t trust us though, whiche who the fuque can really blame them, I sure as hell wouldn’t truste here. Suprised we didn’t get fuquing culled on the spot, but that’s better for us. Tyzias and Stelsa got off free cause they’re cull-on-sight, but no one here trusts me so I can’t have any tech for a sweep. Fuqing bullshite, but better than being culled. I tried to them about you, but they don’t want to heare anything about anye trolls higher than gold on the hemospecturm outside the hive. Onlye reason I can even talk is cause I stole some lowbloods palmhusk but after this I’m not talking to you anymore. Probably going to have to ditche this palmhusk too. Not worthe the risk. Good lucke and don’t get culled.  


You couldn’t even be in the rebellion, couldn’t even get orders, get them to tell you what they needed. You were shut out.  


You could hear what Galekh would say, could hear what they all would say. “What did you expect to happen?” You had gone off to play rebel and it didn’t work. Everything was useless. You were too fucking stupid to even think about what you were doing, to consider that all the trolls who were calling you a dumbass were right.  


You deserve it. You failed. Again. Maybe even worse before. The thing you sacrificed Galekh for, the thing you tried so hard to accomplish was fucking pointless. It was all pointless. Your code everything. All useless trash.  


That was it. This was it. Just garbage in the gutter.  


No.  


No, this wasn’t it.  


You turn back the code in front of you and stare. You raise your hands to your eyes and wipe the wetness away. You notice they’re shaking, notice a whole lot of your body is shaking in fact, but you block it out.  


You didn’t fucking care anymore. You worked on this code. You were going to fucking finish it. The rebels didn’t kill Galekh, Trizza did. You already forced yourself to keep going once, what was one more time?  


You stare hard at your monitor, willing your fingers to dance across your keyboard again, for your attention to fall back where it should be. If nothing else, you would take revenge on Trizza. You weren’t going to go through the hell of all these emotions without taking something from her, especially not after she had taken so much from you.  


A hand moves unconsciously up to your ear to toy with a piercing. The feeling relaxes you, allows you to regain enough control to focus back on the screen before you, to read carefully over your code. Finally, your hand lowers itself back to the keyboard.  


And you start typing.  
______________________________________________________________________ 

You stare at your screen trying to make sense of the code in front of you. You squint, wishing your vision wasn’t so blurry and your eyes weren’t so dry, You get closer to the screen trying to force yourself to understand, to just finish one more line, but it’s still too blurry and your pan is still sluggish to make sense of things.  


You curse loudly and raise your fist to pound it against the table. However, when it hits it barely makes a noise and your hand flares up in pain. Your face twists into an expression of simultaneous pain and disappointment and you pull your hand into your chest to rub it. You needed to fucking sleep. Really sleep as in getting back into sopor again.  


You stomach makes a pained growl and a sharp hung pang follows. You guess the first one must have opened the floodgates because your body starts reporting all the other ways it’s deeply, deeply unhappy with you. The low throbbing that had been present in your head takes a distinct turn towards the painful and you press your palms to your eyes trying to block out the pain. It doesn’t work.  


You groan and rise from your chair, though you quickly find your legs to be rather wobbly after sitting so long. You regain control of yourself, then start heading to your mealblock. As you go, you press your nose into your hoodie and sniff. To your supreme lack of surprise, it smells gross. You pull your nose away and sigh as the throbbing in your head intensifies.  


You were dirty, tired, hungry, and in pain. Even though you wanted to go back to your computer, wanted to go back to work, you knew you couldn’t. The last few nights have been exhausting anyway because, beyond your own body's complaints, your pan seemed intent on reminding you about Galekh and Tagora. About how Remele just up and walked away. Those, however, were things you couldn’t do much about. Not until you finished this project and maybe not even then though. Your body though? The mess you’ve made of yourself? All of your aches and complaints?  


Well, you could try and fix that.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

When you enter your respiteblock, you can’t help but linger by your computer. You knew, objectively, that you were too tired to code, but that didn’t stop you from wanting to finish. You were so close. So fucking close. But you wouldn’t get there tonight.  


You sigh, then drag yourself over to your recuperacoon. You take a glance out the window and a heavy feeling settles in your chest. A few fires were burning in the distance and you could see drones darting through the air. You thought you had adjusted to the devastation of the city at this point, but now that everything was said and done, you weren’t sure. You weren’t sure of anything anymore.  


What were you going to do after this? You were probably going to finish the code tomorrow, seize control of the drones, and make them go crazy to the greatest extent you could. But after that, you had no idea. You didn’t want to think about that now though. Thinking about it reminded you of Galekh. You always thought you’d eventually fall into one another's red quadrant, it was your whole game plan really, whether you realized that at the time or not.  


A low, painful ache blooms in your chest and you tear your gaze away from the window. You had had enough breakdowns in the past nights and you didn’t want to have another. Not when you were this tired.  


You let yourself sink deep into your ‘coon and focus all of your energy on thinking about how good it felt. The slime is cool and comforting and is probably the best thing you’ve experienced all night. Even better than your time in the ablutiontrap and even your time spent eating.  


You close your eyes and instantly feel the pull of sleep and gladly relinquish yourself to the sensation. Your pan needed it. You needed it.  


There was always tomorrow anyway.  
___________________________________________________________________________ 

Your finger lingers over the button to launch your program and your pan all too happily reminds you have what happened the last time. Obviously, you thought that circumstances were different enough that a comparison between what you were doing now and what you did then were superficial, but the now familiar presence of anxiety from making itself known.  


You narrow your eyes, but mouse away from the execute command and scroll up instead, looking over your code for what must’ve have been the hundredth time. You were confident that you had it, shit you had already tested in on a drone made you nervous. One success didn't mean shit, especially not for something as important as this, but you didn’t know what else you could change at this point. Sure, you could sit and wonder gotten the exact result you wanted, but something about launching it on any sort of wide-scale on trying to find a way to spread the code faster, to catch more drones in the initial wave, but trying to work that in at this point was a mess too big for even you to touch.  


Currently, the only drones you were set to unleash instantly were the ones in Thrashthurst. Your code would eventually reach drones that were further out, but it would take time. The drones needed to exchange information and details for that to happen. It would happen, but it wouldn’t be instant and that’s what scared you. You didn’t think that Trizza had developed anything to counter what you were about to do, but the last time you were so confident about something everything had backfired.  


Not like there was a whole lot you could do about that. It’s not like you could send your work to other trolls and have them check it.  


You scroll back down, returning you course right over the enter button, ready to execute. You were sure what you were about to do would have consequences. Realistically, you knew that you would probably get perfectly innocent trolls killed in the process. Yet, the thought of killing nameless trolls barely registered in your pan. The irony in the thought wasn’t lost on you, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care, regardless of what that said about you. You could always regret it later.  


At the end of the day, you didn’t think this absolves you of anything. It was likely that once you actually pressed the button, your life would only get worse and you would simply add it to your now never-ending list of regrets. But what else were you going to do? Hide in your hive for the rest of your life? You were sure you could do better than that. Would do better than that. At the very least, you would deal a massive blow all at the same time and end the conflict. If you were extra lucky, one of the drones would cull Trizza.  


It was funny, that all of your work had come down to this. You couldn’t help but feel a bit dramatic yourself. It was a movie moment. The big-bad cerulean executing their plan to take over, crushing all their enemies at their feet with one decisive strike while all the other trolls stood in awe. Of course, beautiful trolls were flinging themselves at them to fill buckets too, like the rites of maturation were imminent and they had never touched a quadrant before. Sure, you weren’t a movie star and you never would be, but you’d take any shred of confidence you could get.  


So, you scroll to the bottom of the console again, take a final breath as you stare at the execute button.  


Then hit it.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

You and Folykl are sitting happily in your new hive, with Folykl sitting in your lap with her back to your chest as she rambles to you about a way to find a palmhusk. You’re half paying attention, more enjoying the fact that you had a lounge plank to sit on, sopor to sleep in, and that you had actually gotten to use an abultiontrap for the first time in far too long.  


Folykl had at first, insisted that she wasn’t going in, but after you told you’d be joining her, she changed her tune.  


For now, you were too tired to listen to Folykl’s schemes or try to figure out what your next step would be. At least for tonight, you wanted to sit and do nothing, to put off all of your worries for later. You knew that you would eventually have to figure out how this strange little community functioned and you’re sure that if you had listened more closely to the tealblood you would have picked up something, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Not now at least.  


Folykl: -so that’s what i think i’ll do  


You’re sure that Folykl knows you’re not really paying attention, but before you’re forced to make any other reply, the door to your new hive swings open, and three trolls pile inside. Immediately, the calm environment that you had been feeling so far vanishes as what must’ve been one of Alternia’s most awkward staredowns occurs. You knew that you were going to be getting hivemates, had even expected it, but the trolls in front of you were decidedly not what you had expected.  


Two tealbloods and a cerulean stood looking at you their gazes just as surprised, curious, and confused as your own. You instantly put together that the two teals were in a quadrant. Not only were they holding hands, but the taller and less tired looking of the two teals was pressed way closer to other, absolutely exhausted teal than would be normal outside of a quadrant.  


The cerulean was far more of a wild card. You were pretty sure that she wasn’t in a quadrant with either of the two teals but she obviously had some sort of other connection that caused her to end up sharing the same hive as them. The cerulean also seemed to be the most dangerous, even if she looked about as exhausted as the other two trolls. There was just a look in her one good eye that told you that this was a troll that was not to be trifled with. When you look at her eyes, you feel your curiosity flare. One of them was empty, filled with the typical yellow, while the other had a pupil that was X with circles at the end of each line. A small flare of jealously surges forth and you find yourself envious of her bad eye. Your own was a testament to the brutal way it was removed, while hers looked surprisingly elegant.  


You instantly disliked her.  


Folykl: fucking what?   
Folykl: they stuck us with highbloods? Seriously?  
Stelsa: EXCUSE ME IM NOT A HIGHBLOOD WE ARE AT BEST MIDCASTE ITS NOT LIKE WE ARE RUNNING AROUND AT THE TOP OF THE HEMOSPECTURM SO DONT BE SO RUDE   
Remele: I’m midcaste too you know.  
Marsti: You’re blood is literally blue who the fuck are you trying to fool? -_-  
Remele: It’s cerulean actually, the eye not tip it off for you?  
Folykl: your fucked up eye doesn’t give you immunity what the fuck  
Remele: I’m on the cull liste for far more interesting reasons than my bloode.  
Marsti: Oh I’m sure you’re very important, not like I didn’t have to cull a fucking seadweller to make it here -_-  
Tyzias: can you twwwwo stop pitch flirting nowwww  
Tyzias: wwwwe get it  


As soon as the words leave the shorter teals mouth Folykl pauses. Then, she reaches back and grabs a fist full of your hair, pulling you forward to bring her lips to your own. You can almost taste the aggression and possessiveness coming off of her and she holds you there for far longer than needed to make her point.  


Not that you were complaining. It wasn’t exactly classy, but it was very Folykl.  


Folykl: no one is pitching flirting with her  
Folykl: she’s mine  


You’re not surprised at the words that follow, but you don’t expect the pleasant warmth that blooms in your chest when you hear them.  


Tyzias: i-  
Tyzias: okay  
Tyzias: i’mmmm going to sleep  
Remele: Yeah, I am too. They’re worse than you and Stelsa, Tyzias.  
Stelsa: WE ARE NOT THAT BAD AND HOW DARE YOU SAY THINGS LIKE THAT CONSIDERING THE STORIES YOUVE TOLD US REMELE I SWEAR YOU ARE  
Tyzias: stelsa c’mon  
Tyzias: we have a recouprecoon  


Stelsa stops, sweeping her eye across you and Folykl a final time, before sighing deeply.  


Stelsa: COMING  


Stelsa struts out of the room, slamming the door harder than needed to, leaving you and Folykl in silence with Remele.  


Remele: I’ve got trolls to talke too.  
Remele: Do whatevere  


You watch her stalk out of the room and hear her door slam. For a moment, you're tempted to complain that she got to have her own room and ‘coon while the rest of you had to share, but quickly note that you didn’t actually want your own. You’d much rather share with Folykl. You had spent too many nights cuddled up against her that sleeping alone would never again have the same appeal.  


You assumed that Tyzias and Stelsa were planning on sharing anyway too.  


Folykl: what a huge bitch  
Marsti: Yeah -_-  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

You jolt up from your ‘coon disoriented and confused. The world is silent for a moment, and you squint your eyes in the darkness of the hive trying to figure out what forced you awake. You look down at Folykl, checking to see if she’s awake when a loud boom careens through the air and the walls of your hive rattle. Folykl jerks up beside you, her head sweeping around the room, mimicking your own actions from only moments before.  


Folykl: what the fuck was-   


The unmistakable noise of a deafening explosion fills the air again and your hive renews it’s shaking again. As soon as the air is quiet again, the unmistakable noise of trolls shouting and crying out starts up.  


Marsti: Fuck we’re being attacked -_-  
Folykl: shit what the hell do we-  


Folykl’s panicked laced words are cut off again as the noise of a series of several smaller explosions fills the air. You scramble out of the ‘conn, fumbling on the ground for your clothes and pulling them on.  


Marsti: Get up and throw something on, there has to be a safer place than here, I know there is -_-  
Folykl: did that fucking teal mention something about-  


She’s cut off once again, but you know what she was trying to get at. You curse loudly, shoving Folykl’s shirt into her hands while berating yourself for not listening closer to the teal who made you sign all that paperwork. You hoped that Remele and the other trolls hadn’t left yet. You didn’t want to look to a crowd for guidance again, especially in a moment of panic.  


You watch Folykl dress impatiently, biting your tongue to stop several “encouraging” remarks from slipping out. As soon as she pulls the last of her clothes, you grab her hand hard, yanking her into your back as you crouched slightly. She crashes into you, but another explosion going off prevents you from hearing any complaints. Seconds later, the sounds of other weapons firing picks up, along with several shrieks of pain. Your bloodpusher tries to tear itself out of your chest and your vision starts to tunnel as more and more adrenaline is dumped into your blood.  


As soon as Folykl is on your back with her arms wrapped tightly around you, you’re off, tearing through your hive and straight for the door. A small sigh of relief slips out of your throat when you see Remele, Tyzias, and Stelsa emerging from their own blocks, looking just at freaked out as you felt.  


Tyzias: wwwwe need to get to the commmmand center  
Tyzias: that’s the closest shelter point it’s not safe in here  


Tyzias has to howl to be heard over the sounds of battle and a particularly loud explosion causes you and all the trolls around you to visibly startle.  


Remele: Alright, then let’s fuquing go.   


Remele rushes to the door and all but kicks it open. You see her head jerk back and forth taking in as much as she can as fast as she can. She takes a step outside all of her muscles tensed, but pauses and looks back at us. 

Remele: Move. It'se only going to gete worse! Follow me!  


Then, she’s out the door, running for one of the larger buildings you had spotted on your way in.  


You lunge a split second before Tyzias and Stelsa do and then you’re out the door keeping your eyes locked on Remele’s retreating form as you sprint after her. You try to keep your eyes from wandering, try to keep them fixed on Remele’s back, but you can’t. You let your eyes wander, darting back and forth and shudder at the number of drones around you. They’re everywhere you look, but mostly seem to be engaged with fighting the now emerging rebel militia. 

Out of nowhere, a drone whirls on the one next to it, slicing the massive blade on its arm right through the head of its ally. You nearly stumble in shock, but keep pace, forcing yourself to find Remele.  


The building is coming up quickly, only around one hundred feet away. You take another glance to the side, trying to locate the treasonous drone again. Instead, your gaze falls on a battle royale of drones and lowbloods. It was a bizarre sight to see. The lowbloods were more organized than the drones by a mile and the drones seemed more intent on killing anything that moved to have any sort of teamwork. It was if they all had lost off sopor.  


Remele: YOU FUQING DIPSHIT!!!  


Remele is screaming at you from the door and you look up to see why. You were still moving. Shit, you’d be there in less than 10 seconds so why the fuck did she look like you-  


You’re thrown off your feet and crash into the ground several feet away. Your thoughts are scrambled and your ears are ringing, but you know that you must have stood too close to an explosion. Thankfully, you still feel Folykl clinging tightly to your back and you’re extremely happy that she landed on top of you rather than vice versa. You’re not sure how you're alive until you feel a force lifting you into the air, then flinging you through the air again. You try to move your head around to find what’s tossing you around like a rag doll, but every single muscle in your body is frozen in a vice grip.  


You feel something crack as you slam against the ground again but there is no breath available in your lungs to cry out. All that can slip out of you is a low choking noise. Someone takes a hold of your arms and you’re being dragged somewhere, but your vision is still blurry and the last crash only accentuated that fact. You try to force yourself to breathe and, through the haze of your pain, figure out what the fuck was going on. It was obvious that you’re being dragged somewhere and being that was true, there was one of two possibilities. Either a member of the rebellion was dragging you to safety or a drone was dragging you away to cull you in a more convenient location. You were fairly certain the former was more likely than the ladder, but you were never the luckiest troll. Either way, there was nothing much you could do.  


Slowly, the sounds of battle fade, until all you’re able to hear is the low murmur of concerned trolls and distant rumbles. Your arms hurt from being pulled by them and being dragged across the ground on your stomach was only aggravating your new injury. However, the lack of dying was a huge sense of relief. You wanted to close your eyes, as you just focus on listening, letting everything else fade away as you were dragged off. ____________________________________________________________________________ 

You sit quietly, staring out your window as the drones went wild. You were surprised that it was going so well. So well, that at least a third of your camera feeds were knocked out. You glanced back at your computer every now and then. Chitter was pulled up and you had sat the page to constantly refresh, waiting for news.  


Honestly, you were just waiting for your hivestem to finally be blown up. You were amazed, shocked that it lasted this long. You were glad that you ended up in possibly the smallest, least ostentatious midblood stem. If you were a bit greedier, a bit more image-conscious, you might have moved to one of the highblood ones and gotten culled by a purpleblood.  


Being alive though didn’t seem to be much of an accomplishment for you. Not when you didn’t know what came next. You thought ruminating in existential dread was awfully passé considering the circumstances, but what else were you going to do? You had launched your program and all that was left to do was wait and see if Trizza would die.  


Assuming you weren’t blown to bits that is.  


So, you kept staring at the window, watching the drones.  


Waiting for the fall of an empire.  
____________________________________________________________________________ 

You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Your ears still hurt and your head was pounding, but the pain didn’t seem to matter at all. You were safe, alive, and with Folykl. You couldn’t ask for a much better outcome.  


You almost check out, letting yourself fall asleep on the cold concrete of the floor underneath you, when a large number of quiet, but incessant whispers startup. Then you hear several trolls moving back and forth and yelling excitedly to their friends. Typically, you’d be more interested, but with the way you were just thrown around didn’t lend itself for getting engaged in much. You would have asked Folykl what she thought, but she was oddly silent. At first, you thought she was mad at you for almost getting the two of you killed. However, you slowly note that she's coiled around you tighter than usual. You thought that was a good sign, even if it did mean that she crushing you into the floor even more than usual. Again, you considered moving, but it didn’t seem to be worth the effort right now. You weren’t dead and you had laid down to rest in more uncomfortable locations. So, once again, you settle yourself down to sleep.  


However, this attempt is interrupted by a much louder series of sharp cheer and celebrations. You frown at the floor, trying to pick out what the noise was all about. The only words you can pick out the words Trizza, drone, and culled. Anything else is too hard to understand and you’re too unfocused and out of it. You were sure that the information had some sort of relevance, but for the life of you, you weren’t able to put it together right now.  


You feel Folykl moving, rolling you onto her back as she looms above you. Her face was covered in the brightest, most wicked smile you’d ever seen. She opens her mouth to say something, but the whoops of joy and other noises of celebration drown her out.  


Instead, she smiles down at you, and then her lips are covering your own and her hands are reaching up to cup your face and hold you still. You’re still not sure why, but you know something good is happening, so you just lay back and let it happen, sighing in contentment as her lips move over yours.  


Folykl pulls back and then her lips are at your ear, close enough that if she were to talk normally, you could likely hear her over the noises of celebration. As she shifts on top of you, her knee presses uncomfortably against your ribs and you give a full-body wince. Folykl recoils, then adjusts, pressing her hands on either side of your head and raising herself up and off of you, giving you more than enough room to breathe. She then leans forward again, pressing her lips back to the same spot near your ear.  


Folykl: trizza got fucking culled by her own drones  
Folykl: she’s fucking dead the bitch is dead!  


Folykl throws back her head and lets out her own cry of joy, before scooting back a bit to drop her hips on top of your own, pointedly avoiding your injury.  


You stare up at Folykl’s face and all the pieces finally snap together. The celebration, unexpectedness, the burst of wild, chaotic energy. No one thought this would happen. Fuck, you didn’t think this would happen. Honestly, you didn’t know what this all meant, not in the long run, not even really now. What you could recognize, was a sense of pure, unadulterated happiness, the first you’ve felt of its sort, bubbling up in you. You roll your head side to side, taking in the crowd and smile as you see Tyzias and Stelsa embracing amid a sea of lowbloods. You don’t know where, Remele is, but you’re sure she’s somewhere awash in the sea of trolls.  


You feel a pang of sympathy for the trolls outside, the ones who were fighting the drones right now and wouldn’t hear the news until later, but it was hard to worry about that right now. Not when this happened not now.  


So instead you gather your strength, take Folykl’s face in your hands, and kiss her for all she’s worth.


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this is it! I hope yall enjoyed!

Your eyes blink open as the tail end of the memory repeats itself in your pan, proving you with ample time to process it. You let a sharp smile rise to your face and cackle loudly. Oh, that was so _interesting_. It was nice to get a look at your home planet, especially when it was like that. It was all the justice you had ever dreamed of seeing, an actual planet-wide revolution, and you got to take a front-row seat and sort through it. You never thought you’d find a thread of Alternian history where things went that way, but apparently getting yourself outside of canon helped.  
  


Dirk: Yo.  
Dirk: Whenever you’re done drooling over the control panel could you get out of the way?  
Dirk: It’s my turn on the narrative.  


You turn around and laugh again, walking forward and placing your cane under Dirk’s chin and nudging it upwards. He lets you, his whole body relaxed as he does his best to give you a deadpan look through his shades.  


Terezi: OH D1RK YOU C4N PL4Y ON TH3 N4RR4T1V3 WH3N3V3R YOU W4NT  
Terezi: I W4S JUST R3M3MB3R1NG SOM3TH1NG V3RY INT3R3ST1NG  


Dirk raises his hand and pushes down your cane. You watch his body tense nearly imperceptibly, then you snap your cane on the ground leaning it against it with your elbows and grin up at Drik. You knew he wanted to know more. He hated that he had to meet you at a level playing field.  


Dirk: What the fuck were you thinking about that caused you to stand there for like four hours?  
Dirk: Were you dreaming about making the beast with two backs with Vriska again?  
Terezi: OH D1RK 1’M FL4TT3R3D, YOU W4TCH3D M3 TH4T WHOL3 TIM3?  


He snorts and you’re sure that he’s rolling his eyes.  


Dirk: Hell yeah I was watching.  
Dirk: You were the most interesting thing on this ship at the time.  
Terezi: D1RK YOU LOS3R  
Dirk: Got em.  
Dirk: So what were you actually remembering?  


You lift a hand and tap a finger against your chin. Dirk knows that you don’t really have to think about it. Knows that you could vomit the information out right away if you so desired, but he was right about one thing. This ship was fucking boring. The most entertainment you had gotten in weeks was going through that memory and now, playing petty mind games with Dirk. He might’ve been toxic and annoying in some of the worst ways, but you had to admit that he played mind games on par with both you and Rose.  


Terezi: JUST 4N OLD V3RS1ON OF 4LT3RN1A  
Dirk: Yeah, no.   
Dirk: If it was just some boring alien homeworld shit you wouldn’t have even brought it up as interesting.  
Dirk: Unless you’ve developed the desire to experience getting culled by a drone in real-time, there was something else going on.  
Terezi: WH4T 1F TH4T W4S 1T?  
Dirk: Unless you’ve suddenly become a masochist I somehow doubt it.  
Terezi: YOU T3LL M3, YOU’R3 THE ONLY ON3 W1TH 1NT1M4T3 KNOWL3DG3 ON THE TOPIC  


Dirk snorts and leans against the wall, shoving his hands in his pockets and moving his head and down to size you up. You hold your position and your cocky grin, waiting for him to return the barb. Jake was always a touchy subject around him, but you had spent enough time on this godforsaken ship to have accidentally shared all your trauma with one another. You’d admit, and putting it lightly, that none of you were particularly the most supportive people in the world, but being dropped in paradox space made you get comfy fast.  


Dirk: I’m sure you’re familiar enough with the practice. You did travel across paradox space to try and bring your sub back home after all.  


You throw back your head and let out your loudest, most obnoxious laugh yet. It was a decent barb. A bit close to home, but you could hardly complain when you had done the same.  


Terezi: 1T WAS 4 V3RS1ON OF 4LT3RN1A WH3R3 4 R3B3LL1ON 4CTU4LLY SUCC33D3D  
Terzi: 1T 4LSO W4S OUTS1D3 OF C4NON  


Dirk snaps to his feet and you can tell that you have caught his interest, just like you knew it would, If there was one thing the man in front of you was obsessed with, it was canon. So obsessed that you had heard the word canon enough that is ceased having all meaning to you.  


Dirk: How?  
Dirk: There might be a whole lot of shit that’s outside of canon, but it’s not exactly easy to get at.  
Terezi: OH D1RK YOU HAV3 MUCH TO L34RN  
Terezi: 1T S33MS SOM3 SORT OF FR13NDSHAP3D T4ST1NG TH1NG D1D 1T  
Dirk: How can someone taste like a friend?  
Dirk: You’ve made a lot of strange comparisons, but that one has to take the cake for -  
Terezi: SHHHHH  


Dirk obeys and falls quiet again.  


Terezi: L1K3 I W4S S4Y1NG, TH1S FR13NDT4ST1NG P3RSON MAD3 1T NOT C4NON W1TH SOM3 SORT OF R3TCON POW3RS  
Terezi: JUST L1KE JOHN  


You go silent after that and simply watch Dirk put all the pieces together himself. You know it won’t take long, but it was still a part of the game. Giving away too much information too soon was never fun.  


Dirk: So you’re seriously telling me the force that’s been running around and rending the viability of fucking everything, fucking shit up like crazy, tastes like a friend.  
Dirk: And that’s all the information you have on the matter.  
Terezi: CORR3CT  
Terezi: MR. V4N1LL4 M1LKSH4K3 W4S ALSO INVOLV3D  
Dirk: Who?  


Right into your trap. You stand up to your full height and start walking to the exit, not even sparing Dirk a second glance. You might not be the most theatrical troll ever, but annoying both Rose and Dirk in one fell swoop was admittedly the type of entertainment you had been craving. Just as your walking through the door, you give Dirk his answer, shouting out loudly at the wall in front of you, not even bothering to turn your head.  


Terezi: 4SK ROS3  
Dirk: Ugh.  


Your laughter echoes down the hall.  



End file.
